


Closer to Q

by internetname



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-22
Updated: 2014-10-22
Packaged: 2018-02-22 04:46:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 37,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2494970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/internetname/pseuds/internetname
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For once, Picard takes the iniative, but can he really give Q everything he wants, and can Q accept it?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Closer to Q

**Author's Note:**

> OK, the very first thing Ruth Gifford and I (as Veroneeka) wrote together as the Anon Sisters was a tag-on for a story no longer on the Internet because some enormous jerk ruined the author of that's story's life by "outing" her. Jackass. But then the Anon Sisters wrote their first full-length tale in response to a friend's challenge (she actually wrote the first fifteen lines).

  
Captain Jean-Luc Picard looked up from his Earl Grey and cloth-bound copy of _The Temple of My Familiar_ with a poorly suppressed smile when the flash of light appeared by his couch.

"Bonjour, Mon Capitaine." 

"Q." The many syllables he gave the name took on an unfamiliarly pleasant tone, almost welcoming. 

Q frowned at him, disappointed that Picard wasn't scowling at his immaculate Star Fleet uniform. Picard himself was dressed only in his robe, and Q had been certain their disparate attire would discomfort the man deeply. 

"Would you like some tea?" the captain asked. 

"No." Q was practically pouting, arms and legs crossed, a definite sulk to his sensual mouth. 

"Suit yourself." Picard set down his book and crossed his own legs at the ankles, smiling more obviously when Q's eyes wavered in distraction. 

"So, what is it you want this time, Q?" 

The entity put on his smug face, happy to get to this part of things. "After your last encounter with the Borg, I thought you might be willing to share you views on why humans, while being such an inferior race, have had such success in defeating them." 

Picard chuckled. "That the best you can do, Q?" 

"The best what?" Q felt angry. 

"The best excuse for showing up in my quarters in the middle of the night." Picard set down his tea as well and stood up. Q's eyes widened. "Honestly, you'd think an omnipotent entity would have more self-awareness than that." 

Q snarled, "What are you talking about, Picard?" 

For answer, Jean-Luc undid the tie of his robe and slipped the thin material off his shoulders so that it slithered into a pool at his feet. Q choked slightly and stared a lot. 

"I'm talking about sex, Q. Now, are we going to do it or what?" 

"Uh..." Q looked at the man in front of him and his first thought was to flee as quickly as possible, pausing only to either erase Picard's memory of all of this or to just drop the man into a black hole somewhere. How dare Picard think that Q wanted to have sex with him? It was absurd, insane even. Just who the hell did Jean-Luc think he was, standing there all naked and inviting like that? Inviting? Had he just thought that Jean-Luc looked inviting? Where had that come from? For that matter, what had given Jean-Luc the absurd notion that sex, messy, silly looking, human sex was something that Q wanted? "What gave _you_ the idea that I wanted _that_?" Q tried to lace his voice with all the scorn in his repertoire, but apparently he was less than successful. Jean-Luc just took a step closer. 

"Just a few little things," that warm baritone said easily, a faint smile hovering around the corners of his eyes. "You chasing me around while I was in my pajamas. That time you showed up in bed with me, when I was in the past. You do remember that, don't you? I didn't have any clothes on and there you were, playing with my ear." While Q was still trying to rid his mind of the memory of being that close to a naked Jean-Luc Picard, he was suddenly much closer. "Just what is it," Picard asked softly, moving around to stand behind Q, "about my ears anyway?" Gripping Q's biceps lightly, the captain rose on his toes and whispered the last of his sentence in Q's ear. That warm breath did very disturbing things to the entity's human form, and he wanted to tear himself away from Picard's light hold. 

And yet, if that were what he wanted, why wasn't he doing it? Why was he staying here, hoping against hope that Jean-Luc would...Would what? He couldn't do this, couldn't let this mere human make him feel like this. 

"And how is it?" Jean-Luc asked, his voice seeming to caress every part of Q. "That with all your vast knowledge, you seem to have no concept of personal space where I'm concerned?" Picard stopped talking and leaned in again this time to carefully, deliberately, lay one fleeting kiss on Q's neck, above the collar of the Starfleet uniform, but below Q's ear. "Do you just like being that close?" Jean-Luc shifted then, placing another small kiss on the exact same spot on the other side of Q's neck. "I'm going into the bedroom now, and I'm going to get into bed. Think about that for a minute, all right, Q?" That voice was still there, still close. "Think about me, naked, in bed, waiting for you." And then, Picard's disturbing presence was gone, and Q was alone in the captain's living room, looking at Picard's abandoned robe. 

_I'm a Q,_ Q thought, which he always found to be a steadying thought. He had always been Q, except that one time he was human. Picard had seen him that way. Picard was...getting into bed. He could actually hear the soft rustle of the comforter being pulled back. The simple noise was beneath consideration. Silly human hormonal games had always been beneath his contempt. Well, he'd been willing to roll about in the mud for a while with Kathy, but that had been for a higher purpose. A sacrifice on his part. He'd felt horribly uncomfortable dealing with her, and was more than a little concerned he'd looked like a fool the whole time. 

Well, that settled things, Q thought, getting ready to snap out of Picard's quarters in grand style. He certainly wasn't going to look like a fool in front of Picard! In fact, he realized this was all just some trick on the captain's part, a trap he'd set to get Q to look ridiculous and drive him away. Well, he would leave the human alone then! If Picard couldn't see what an honor it was that the Continuum was interested in him, then he could just stay naked in his bed until he turned to dust! 

But even as Q was bringing up his hand to snap it, and low chuckle came from the bedroom. 

"Not used to getting what you want from me, are you, Q?" 

In a storming rage, Q twirled around and stomped through the doorway to glare at the man half-reclining under the covers on his silly little bed under the window of stars. Q had half a mind to break the window and let this mortal suck vacuum for awhile. He would restore the man to life afterwards, of course, and then maybe force him to pay some sort of forfeit. 

_Like what?_ came the unbidden thought. 

More furious than ever now, Q stomped further into the room. "I don't know what sort of game you think you're playing, Picard, but if you think you can treat me this way with impunity because we have a little personal history, I think it's time to show you just how wrong you are." 

Instead of quaking at Q's tone, however, the man only smiled ruefully, and replied, "I never think I can deal with you with impunity, Q." 

And to demonstrate, the man whipped back the covers to reveal his shining naked body in a fully aroused state. 

Q gulped, trying to tell himself that naked human men looked even sillier than naked human women. He wanted to look elsewhere, but he couldn't stop staring. Picard looked almost ghostly, pale skin touched and outlined by the blue of the ship's running lights that shone in his bedroom window. Those lights revealed what Q already knew, that Picard was in very good physical shape, and a couple of things that Q didn't know. He'd never seen the look Jean-Luc was giving him, a look of anticipation touched with amusement. And there was something else on his face, something that Q couldn't figure out. Of course it was hard to pay attention to Picard's _face_ when the rest of his body was crying out to be looked at. 

Q wondered why he hadn't noticed how... _Well it's_ his _fault,_ Q thought. _I never noticed it before because I never thought about it._ He _brought it to my attention._ Jean-Luc had indeed brought it to Q's attention, and now Q could do nothing but look at Picard and see how much the man was just made for...sex. Q tried to avoid thinking about it, but his eyes flickered from Jean-Luc's face to his chest and the entity couldn't help enhancing his vision to notice that Jean-Luc's nipples were just begging to be nibbled. He looked at the man's large hands, and couldn't help but wonder what it would be like to feel those hands on his skin. And those legs...what would they look like pulled back towards Jean-Luc's chest while he waited to be taken? And that. _Well I don't need enhanced vision to see_ that. _I wonder if I could possibly..._ disgusted with his train of thought, Q looked back at Picard's face. 

The amusement there deepened as Picard's eyes looked Q up and down. Q was suddenly aware that his traitorous human body was betraying him. "Like what you see?" Picard asked. That something on his face was gone now and only its absence made Q realize that it had been doubt. 

"You were bluffing!" Q blurted out. 

Picard surprised him by chuckling. "A little. But the stakes were high, it was worth it." 

"What was worth it? Making me think that you wanted me to..." 

"Oh no, mon ami. Wrong tense. 'Want' not 'wanted.'" He reached down and ran the palm of his hand along his erection. "This is _not_ a bluff." 

Q felt himself grow extremely hard all at once. He'd no idea human men were so much at the mercy of their bodies' demands. He felt weak and yet empowered, he wanted to run away, and yet he wanted to jump on top of that marble body and... 

And do _what?_ If Picard had the decency to be a woman at least there would be a clear agenda. But the captain as he was seemed like a collection of sex toys: so much to play with. Frankly, there had been times when simply listening to Picard's voice and watching his compact body walk across the room had brought more pleasure to Q than he'd had the entire rest of the year. 

_I could make him come,_ Q thought, his eyes transfixed by the sight of Picard now removing his hand from his erection and moving over a bit in the bed, inviting Q with that empty space between the sheets. _I could see his eyes roll back and his flushed skin shiny with sweat and his body tense up and his mouth open in a scream and his semen rush out. It's what humans consider the ultimate intimacy, and I could do it._

Rather in the manner of the fastidious when they go to pet a slobbering dog on the head, Q bent over and reached out one hand under Picard's hazel gaze to trail his fingertips over that surprisingly soft skin over the astonishingly hard organ he'd sometimes managed to forget the captain had at all. He knew, after all, that such a touch would make the man react in some sort of primitive way that might be interesting to watch. 

"Interesting," however, turned out to be something of a misnomer. Picard was neither amazing nor intriguing in his response: he was simply sex formed of flesh and blood. 

The man groaned and spread his legs as his hips raised up in a perfect wave of entreaty that had Q instantly falling into a rhythm of stroking. His skin did flush and shine with perspiration, but it also seemed somehow to glow with desire from within, not glossy but luminescent. His low groans, soft and so revealing of pure need, seemed somehow to dictate the actions of Q's now swollen and weeping cock. The entity's knees went weak and he ended up kneeling on the bed, his whole consciousness focused on participating in Picard's pleasure. 

"So good," the man groaned, astonishing Q with the formation of actual words. "Just your hand...you feel so good." 

Q's human body caught its breath at the words. Not just the words themselves, but the sound of them; Picard's normally smooth voice was ragged with need and desire. There was a faint pleading quality to that voice that amazed Q with its vulnerability. _I should be gloating now,_ the entity thought. _I should be reminding him of how absurd he looks like this and how easy it was for me to get him to this point. Would he beg, I wonder?_

He stopped and Picard moaned, but said nothing, and Q, missing the feel of his hand moving over the silk-wrapped steel of Jean-Luc's erection, began stroking again. He deliberately upped his tempo, and Picard gave into the rhythm right away, thrusting against Q's hand as if there were nothing else in the world. And, for Jean-Luc right now, Q was sure there wasn't. Q actually had to damp down his senses because Picard was actually projecting his need enough to be distracting, and the room seemed filled with the sounds of Jean-Luc's gasps and moans and the pheromones that the man was producing. Normally, Q would have made some snide mental aside to himself about humans in rut, but normally his body wouldn't have been responding like this. As it was, he was almost in pain from his own erection and only damping that down, too, enabled him to concentrate fully on Picard. 

Still wondering how far he could get Picard to go, Q stopped again. This time the action was greeted with a whimper and then a pleading arch of Jean-Luc's hips. Again swayed, Q went back to stroking Jean-Luc's cock, feeling a sudden, almost atavistic, feeling of possession and accomplishment. _Look at him,_ Q thought. _Look at him like this and it's all for me._ I'm _the one doing it to him and_ I'm _the one driving him crazy with it._

This time when he stopped, the sound was a word, sobbed over and over again. "Please...please...please...please...” Q responded differently, stroking slowly and very lightly with just the slightest pressure. The word changed to, "More..." and Q sped up, still keeping the pressure light. He got still another word now, "Harder..." but didn't give Jean-Luc what he wanted right away. "Ohhhh...God...please... _please_ Q..." It was that ragged whisper of his name that did it for Q. Taking a quick nanosecond to see just how much speed and pressure he could bring to bear without hurting Picard, Q then gave Picard what he'd asked for. 

A stroke, another, and then a third, and Jean-Luc screamed and convulsed as he came. Q, who had expected, and more than half-hoped, that the sight would cure him of his interest in Jean-Luc, found that he had been wrong. The man should have looked absurd, but instead he looked transfixed, almost transcendent with bliss. Even the physical side of it wasn't as disgusting as Q had expected, and Q found he rather liked the sight of semen pouring out of Jean-Luc's cock. Most of it ended up on Jean-Luc's own chest, and Q liked the look of that as well. _I could do that,_ Q thought. _I could come all over him like that._

Just the thought of doing that, and Q was suddenly feeling his own orgasm. He tried to stop it, or to distance himself from the sharp short flash of ecstasy, but it was too late. He was too caught up in his human body, and had no choice but to ride it out. Half aware that he was groaning and that his hand had tightened where it rested on Jean-Luc's thigh, Q felt the hot wave rush though him and then pour out of him, leaving him breathless and wanting more. 

Picard, however, seemed to be oozing contentment, laying there as though he were made of Tarkalian gal-pudding that hadn't a care in the universe. He smiled at Q with a sort of drowsy wonder and looked ready to go to sleep. 

More than a little annoyed, Q reached up to Picard's right pectoral mound and laid his hand over some of the warm semen with the intention of taunting the man about his debauched state. But at Q's touch the captain only groaned and moved against him, his body making an unashamed plea for more. 

"You're just like the rest of your kind," Q accused, having no idea of the fiery lust sparkling in his dark brown eyes. He was moving his hand now, smearing that slick substance all over the man's sculpted chest. He had this sudden thought of oiling up Jean-Luc's entire body and then sliding his own against all that lubricated warmth. "I could probably just turn you over and fuck you like an animal and you wouldn't mind." 

Picard groaned softly in response, continuing to move with Q's touches, and then asked in a surprisingly dry tone, "You find the thought appealing, Q?" 

Anger flashed through the entity, but rather than imagining tossing this man into a sun or humiliating him in front of his crew, Q knew he was going to make Picard pay for his manipulative posing by stripping him of every last facade, every bit of control, every last particle of his composure and complacency. Picard was going to scream and howl, he was going to cry -- tears and sobs and the whole bit -- he was going to claw at the sheets and fight to stay conscious and forget his own name. 

And he was going to beg for more. 

Q's eyes narrowed a bit as he finished coating the man's whole chest with the now drying cum, aware that he himself had gotten hard again. He really needed to get out of these clothes. Starfleet didn't have massive erections in mind when they designed them. More short-sighted human thinking. 

"What is the best way to proceed?" Q asked Picard, who had grown hard again as well and responded to the query only with an inflected moan. "I could, of course, just fill you with lust and need directly, but that seems so uncouth. Human sexuality is crude, but it does have its subtleties. I suppose I could play by the rules just this once." 

"I'm...I'm already filled with lust and need," Picard got out, still managing a wryness Q found infuriating. 

"Oh, no, Mon Capitaine," Q said, the words husky with menace as his fingertips -- now covered in warm oil -- began to play with the man's pale nipples. "I can see your nervous system's tolerance levels, and we're not even close to what you can take...to what you can feel. That's the reason for your iron control. I've known that about you since we met near Farpoint Station." Q's lips curled into a small smile at the memory. "You feel things so deeply...but you've never felt your limit of pleasure...never allowed yourself to. Part of you is afraid you might not be able to take it -- that feeling your whole body come in ecstasy might turn you into a redolent slave to sensation. I think it's time we found out, you and I." 

Picard groaned, his face flushed and his breathing erratic. Q let himself think of what it was going to be like to be inside this man, thrusting his human body into all that unleashed sexuality, into that power and intelligence quite beyond what one usually found in his race, into _Picard,_ and felt a pleasant rush of heat all though his form that promised a return on every ounce of feeling he gave to his...his what? 

"Lover," Q said aloud, and the word was filled with possessiveness. "You're my lover now, Mon Capitaine." 

Q waited to see what effect his threat would have, then gaped in astonishment when Picard only gasped out, "Good." 

"Yes it is," Q replied mockingly, recovering. "But for whom?" He realized that he was still playing with Jean-Luc's nipples, tugging on them and letting them slip out of his oily fingers. He stopped, got off the bed and looked down at Picard. "Let's go back to square one, shall we, Jean-Luc?" he said, smiling. He snapped his fingers and all evidence of Picard's orgasm was neatly cleaned up. Once more Picard looked like a marble statue under the blue lights. Q shook his head, tsking between his teeth. "This lighting just won't do anymore..." 

Without thinking about how he just happened to have the right setting in mind already, Q snapped his fingers again. Their positions remained the same, but the bed was suddenly bigger. Q saw Picard look around curiously, taking in the dark mahogany of the four posted bed frame, and the dark green painted walls of the room. There were candles everywhere, literally hundreds of them offsetting the darkness of the room. Against the dark green sheets, the marble of Picard's flesh was warm and touched with gold. "I have to applaud your taste," the captain said. "This is...not what I would have expected." 

"I'm full of surprises," Q replied smoothly. "Now, Mon Capitaine," he continued, letting that possessive feeling color his voice and enjoying the shiver it evoked in Picard. "I could go about this in several ways, and I probably will before the night is over. But for now, I'll just keep you the way you are." He reached over to the bedside table and picked up a bottle. Tilting it over Jean-Luc's chest, he watched as the man closed his eyes at the feel of the warm oil spilling over his skin. "Lucky me," Q murmured. "I don't even have to cheat and increase your sensitivity." 

The oil glistened on Jean-Luc's skin and drops of it shone in the candlelight. At the sight, Q's own desire became uncomfortable again and he quickly conjured up a pair of somewhat looser black pants and a black shirt. He'd get naked later, but now he wanted the edge that clothing would provide. He sat down on the bed again and once more touched Jean-Luc's chest, smoothing and stroking the oil everywhere except on the tight nubs of Picard's nipples. He let his fingers discover the patterns of the muscles that lay under the captain's surprisingly warm skin, conjuring up more oil as he let his explorations lead him to Jean-Luc's incredible arms. 

Q noted with delight that there was a faint tremor developing under his fingers, and he smiled to himself. _I haven't done_ anything _yet and he's already starting to shake._ Experimentally, he lightly brushed one nipple with his fingertips. Picard hissed slightly and moved in a wordless plea for more. Suddenly curious, Q slid his fingers across the inside of Jean-Luc's left elbow and again Picard's body responded, curling slightly and then straightening out. "Now that's interesting," Q remarked calmly. "Get you just a little worked up and you're practically dancing. Where's the captain with the backbone of steel now, hmmmm?" 

"Back on...ohhh...the Enterprise...oh God!" Picard closed his eyes and arched as Q suddenly pinched one of his nipples rather hard. When he could next look at Q, the entity was pleased to see a faint hint of pleading in those hazel eyes. 

"Want more?" Q teased. 

"What do you think?" Picard asked. 

"I'll take that as a yes," Q replied. "For _now._ " He went back to his seemingly random touches, following the net of erogenous zones he could see if he looked at Picard the right way. _There,_ Q thought, _the inside of his wrist. And here, this one place on his shin._ Through it all, he mixed stroking caresses, adding oil every now and then, until practically every inch of Picard gleamed as the man writhed and moaned. "I'm playing you," Q said at one point, pinching at Jean-Luc's inner thigh. He followed that up by tracing a spiral on the inside of one of the man's palms, and Picard's sharp gasp transformed into a low moan. "Look at you responding to every touch, every caress. You are _mine_ and I'm playing you like an instrument." 

"You're...a very...dedicated...ohhh...musician...unghhh...very...talented...too..." 

"Then you would like me to continue?" Q let one of his fingers brush over a little nerve cluster at the right mid-point of his ribcage and watched the sensation move out over his body like an explosion of light. 

"Ooooooh...yes." 

"Then tell me you're mine." 

"Hmmmmm..." Picard shuddered and Q marveled at how predictable were his responses and yet surprising as well. The man was reacting to both the stimuli Q gave him directly, then again to the reaction itself, as in a sort of echo. He was also being stimulated by Q's observations of his reactions. It was all really quite fascinating, and if he weren't careful, the entity was going to come again just from watching those ripples of criss-crossing light all along this human's body. "You're mine," the captain growled. 

Q's eyes narrowed once again. "That wasn't what I meant, Mon Capitaine. I'll have to punish you." 

Picard smiled dreamily in response, and Q let him for five seconds, before darting his left hand to the man's erection and drawing a fingernail directly along the primary nerve path. Picard jerked and tried to come -- but now Q's hand was wrapped tightly around the base of his penis, and he could only jerk his hips and groan. Q watched the light in his body burn just a little too hot and then crash into itself, a blend of pleasure and frustration and actual discomfort. 

"Do you want me to do that eight more times?" Q asked. 

Picard only shook his head and then moaned softly when Q released his grip and went back to caressing his body. 

"I'm waiting," Q said. 

"I'm...I'm yours," Picard grunted. 

"Try a little harder, Jean-Luc." 

"I'm yours." The smile returned and the hazel eyes, green and gold and warm as firelight against the sheets, actually twinkled at him. "That is why I threw myself at you, after all." 

"Hmmm, so you did," Q mused, and then with a smile of his own thought away just a little of the oil and _finally_ bent his head and placed his lips around one of the captain's candy-like nipples to suck gently. 

It was safe to say there were few confections in the universe Q hadn't tried, but nothing so far matched the sweetness of the man's whimpered "Yes" as Q lapped his aureole gently, then Picard arched his back as Q sucked a little harder. He then transferred his attentions to his other nipple, and got even more reaction from the man just as he noticed that his own cock was making a wet stain in his new pants and aching rather heavily. 

Q stifled a start of surprise as he felt Picard's hands tugging at the shirt over his back. 

"Please," he was asking. "I want to touch you. I can't stand that I'm not touching you." 

Oh, the desperation in Picard's voice was even sweeter than his nipples. His nerves were humming quite nicely now, and the symphony Q was playing was heading for its first climax in grand style. 

"You want to touch me?" Q asked, his breath warm and yet cooling against Picard's kiss-wet nubs. 

"Oh, yes!" 

"Then you wouldn't like it if I tied you up." 

"No, no. Please, Q. _Please._ Oh, I'll do whatever you say, but don't...I have to touch you." 

In truth, Q had to be touched. It was strange and unexpected and more than a little unsettling to realize that while he was in control here and still following his own agenda nicely, the distance he'd been planning on wasn't going to work out. He couldn't help being involved in this, couldn't help wanting to feel his partner reciprocate at least a little. In truth, the clothes were torture and his own body's ripples of light were crashing against each other rather furiously. 

But the torture was somehow good too, and there was such joy in taking this slowly. Q simply thought his shirt gone, closing his eyes and hissing with pleasure as Picard's large warm hands moved over his back and chest. Q thought about later, after this night, when he might let Picard take control, pleasure _him_ with those hands while Q laid on the bed and whimpered, and once again he almost came. 

_What am I thinking?_ Q thought almost desperately. He shut down for brief second, suddenly afraid and wondering if he'd ever had _any_ control over this situation. When he blinked and came back to the moment, he looked rather fiercely at Picard. The captain was lying on his side now, one of his hands tracing patterns on Q's chest. At Q's fierce stare, however, Picard stopped and lay back down, saying nothing. As if sensing Q's uncertainty, the captain stretched his arms out to either side and arched his body slightly. Their eyes met and Q didn't need any of his powers to read the meaning of Jean-Luc's gesture. 

And it was an incredible gesture, one that had to be particularly hard for the usually cautious, controlled human. Looking at the gleaming pale form, Q smiled and reached out his hand, stroking Picard's flank. "Beautiful," he murmured, noticing that the compliment provoked a faint blush. "So beautiful, and all mine." 

"Please," Picard whispered, as Q's hand came to a stop, mere centimeters from his erection. 

"Oh no," Q chuckled. "We're not there yet, Jean-Luc." With that he bent over Picard's chest, adding, "Nowhere near there." 

This time, he used his mouth to tease, working Jean-Luc's neck and chest over with lips and teeth. Once more, Q was delighted with the man's reaction to pleasure. Where, earlier, Jean-Luc had moaned and squirmed, this time he actually cried out and twisted his body in a vain effort to speed Q up. His cries were mostly just noise, but every once in a while, Q would hear a "Please" or a "Yes!" He realized that Picard was still holding back, not to anger Q, but to stretch this out as long as possible. Smiling again, the entity bent and bit Jean-Luc's neck, right where it met his shoulder, and where the glowing tangle of nerve endings was so sensitive that Q was almost blinded by it. Jean-Luc yelled harshly and rolled toward Q, his hands reaching blindly for the entity. "Please...oh God...please..." 

"What is it you want?" Q asked as Picard's hands grasped his arms. 

"A kiss...please, Q...please kiss me..." 

"Let go of my arms and lie back down on the bed," Q instructed, amazed that his human voice sounded so calm, when just the thought of kissing Jean-Luc was making him shake. When Picard obeyed him, Q bent down and licked gently at the man's lips, which parted under his tongue. Controlling himself, Q continued to tease Picard's mouth, nipping it with his teeth and pulling back when Jean-Luc tried to do the same. Then, without any real warning, Q lowered his mouth to Jean-Luc's and truly kissed him for the first time. It was perfect, the way the man's mouth fit against his, the way his tongue twined around Q's, the little moans that vibrated in the back of his throat; it was so sweet and so hot that Q almost lost control. He wanted to do nothing more than to be inside Jean-Luc _now._ It wasn't just the idea of burying his painfully hard cock inside the man's incredible body that Q wanted, although he wanted that fiercely, almost insanely. Beyond that need, however, was his need to bury _himself,_ everything that he was, inside everything that Jean-Luc was. He shuddered, hardly noticing that Jean-Luc was embracing him, and that his own arms had wrapped around the man in return. 

When he finally tore his mouth away from Jean-Luc's, Q was once more in control of himself. At least, he was in control enough to remember that it wasn't a good idea to find something you'd been looking for throughout all of your existence and then destroy it in thoughtless haste. It weren't as if he didn't have time, all the time they needed, to make sure that they were both ready for something like that. And besides, he had an agenda this evening; Jean-Luc still had to pay the price for his earlier attitude. "You're mine," Q whispered. "You said so, remember?" 

Picard seemed to force his eyes to open and he smiled up at Q, who noticed that the man's mouth looked as swollen as his own felt. "I seem to recall something to that effect." Q shook his head. Jean-Luc was coherent again and that teasing inflection had returned to his voice. 

_He knows I love him like this,_ Q thought. _Challenging me every step of the way, and giving me exactly what I want as he does it._

Q frowned suddenly, suspicious now of...something. 

"How did you know?" he demanded, lightly raking his nails down Picard's chest and watching that alabaster body undulate slowly, deeply in reaction. The fires of his nerves had been banked slightly, but they easily became bright once more and ready to explode. Picard's eyes showed confusion. "How did you know I wanted you?" 

Picard managed something like a shrug. "You had to. I wanted you so badly you had to want me back. I couldn't conceive of a universe where....ugggghhhhh." Q had found an erogenous zone the captain hadn't known existed right inside the peak of his left hip, and trailed along it down around the groin and then lightly inside his thigh. Picard spread his legs and arched his back and pleaded as his flushed erection leaked fluid. Q could hear the frantic beating of his heart and couldn't help checking to make sure its little mechanisms were working perfectly. "Oh, please, Q," the man rumbled. 

"Please what?" 

"I want you. Please. I don't care how, just you." 

Q checked over the lights of his body. Still not there, but getting closer. "You want me?" His fingertips moved up now and lightly traced the perineum, the warm sac, the tight little opening. 

"Yes. Oh, God. Yes." 

"More than you've ever wanted anyone?" 

Jean-Luc whimpered and nodded, trying to move his body more forcefully against Q's maddeningly light touches. As aroused as he was, Q couldn't help feeling how important it was that Picard was trusting him this much, was _letting_ Q do this. In a rare flash of deep insight, Q realized that had he and the human gone on for much longer as they had been, his need to be with Picard like this might have driven him to do something that might have hurt them both. But no, Jean-Luc was right. He _had_ to want Q back. 

But Picard still wasn't at the level of pleasure Q was going to get him to before they physically joined this first time. When they had first met near Farpoint, Q had searched around for quite some time in Picard's mind, and discovered in passing -- Q smiled now thinking of how little he had believed it interested him at the time -- that Picard's approach to sex was almost nauseatingly altruistic. He got his pleasure from feeling his partner's pleasure. It made him a sensitive lover, but it had also made for a discouraging lack of private and selfish sexual fantasies. There were no costumes, no props, no magic words Q could introduce to stimulate Picard beyond what he was already feeling. Damnit, it was almost impossible... 

Q smiled more deeply. Impossibilities appealed to the Q. 

Suddenly the pillows under Picard's head fluffed up, and the captain could now look down at them both without effort. The man's eyes, closed in bliss, opened with this new position. 

"Look at me, Jean-Luc," Q ordered, placing his hands inside the man's thighs and pushing his legs farther apart. "If you stop looking at me while I'm touching you like this, I'll stop." 

Picard's eyes grew wide, then _almost_ closed as Q bent his head and kissed a pattern on his stomach, probing his navel with his tongue, and then moved down, and then further down until he gently sucked the man's left testicle into his mouth and caressed it with his tongue. 

Picard's whole body quaked, and indeed the lights in his body burned brighter than they ever had before. Q knew Jean-Luc would find this intoxicating, and the man's projected emotions of guilty pleasure and pure debauchery bathed him in hot waves. He sucked more deliberately, continuing to use his tongue and his fingers to target this brightest of nerve clusters, and Picard finally began to make some real noise, his barely-open eyes fixed on the dark head working so intently between his spread legs. 

Q knew when Jean-Luc's eyes closed and he lifted his head immediately. Picard groaned and his whole body shook. "Please...Q...I can't...just lie...here...and let you..." 

"Yes, you can. In fact, that's exactly what I want you to do. Lie there and watch me do things like this to you." As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Q leaned back down and licked his way from the base of Jean-Luc's cock to its tip, all in one long motion. Picard made a sound that was more than a gasp and less than a scream, his nerve net flared, and Q smiled. Now he was getting someplace. "Yes," he said, his voice rich with satisfaction. "That's what I want to hear. Did you like seeing me use my tongue on you?" 

"Yesss..." Picard hissed, trying to thrust his hips up. 

"Good. Now watch me do this..." Q again leaned in, feeling the intensity of Picard's gaze even though he couldn't see the man's gorgeous eyes from this position. Tilting his head so that Jean-Luc had a good view, he lapped delicately at the glistening tip of Picard's erection. For a moment, the taste and feel of his lover tempted the entity to throw his whole plan out the window and just suck until Jean-Luc came in his mouth. _Later,_ he told himself sternly. 

Out of the corner of his eye, Q could see one of Picard's hands knotting around a fistful of the sheet as another breathy cry announced his reaction to Q's tongue. Once more those ripples of light chased themselves all over Picard's body as the sensation traveled across the man. Q could tell that Jean-Luc's pleasure was increased not only by what he was _seeing,_ but also by what he was _hearing._ Curiously, Q reached a hand up and pinched one of Jean-Luc's erect nipples, gauging the pressure to just border on the edge of pain without going over. He was right, Jean-Luc was utterly aroused at the sight of the fingers on his nipple and the sound of his own strangled reaction to that sight. 

"Please...ohhhh...please...won't you let me..?" 

"Let you what?" Q asked, noticing that his breath on Jean-Luc's skin was now enough to make the man cry out and move. 

"Make...make you...feel good..." 

"That's what you thought was going to happen tonight? Right? You were going to lure me to bed and overwhelm me with sex." 

"Yes...Q...I need..." 

"You need to do _nothing_ Jean-Luc." Q lifted his hand to catch Picard's attention, and then wrapped it around the man's cock and pumped gently a couple of times. He had to stop another near orgasm, but this time he used his powers, preventing the flare from becoming backlash. His actions got a genuine scream this time, a quiet one, but a scream nonetheless. 

"Please..." Q looked up to meet the pleading hazel eyes and forced himself to not give in. Because he knew Jean-Luc wanted it, and that pleasing his partner was important to the man's image of himself as a lover, Q relented a little. 

"Do this for me, Jean-Luc. Please, it's what I want from you right now. If you can do this _for_ me, next time..." Q drew a deep breath. "Next time, I'll let you do this _to_ me." He hoped Jean-Luc realized what that meant, and was relieved when he saw that network of light flare. Jean-Luc tilted his head back and moaned, apparently aroused by the idea itself. _Someday,_ Q promised himself. _I'm going to lie him down, get him naked and talk to him until he comes without my ever laying a finger on him._

"For you..." Jean-Luc moaned. "I'm here..." 

"Yes, Jean-Luc, I know." Then, keeping firm control of Picard's nervous system, Q leaned over, and took Jean-Luc's cock all the way in. 

"OHHH..." Picard cried out. "It's too...I can't...don't stop...don't ever...I...need this...want it...pleasepleaseplease..." 

Once again Q was tempted to end things this way, but he couldn't help wanting to stick with his original plan. More than just about anything, Q loved surprises, and he knew that his lover did as well. If he brought Picard off with his mouth, it would still be the best orgasm -- by about a factor of ten -- that the man had ever had, but it wouldn't teach him something about his body that Picard had never suspected. Like most men Picard enjoyed it when he was inside a woman and she stimulated his prostate with her hand. But he had never really _explored_ that area sexually, probably because it would have required asking for it. He didn't have a clue how sensitive he was there. Q was determined to show him. 

Besides, Q really, really wanted to be inside Jean-Luc. He had been using his powers now for some time to restrain his own orgasm, but his human organ was dripping and aching and heavy with blood. Just the thought of where his penis was going to be in a moment made his erection twitch and his ears roar. 

Still, Q couldn't let go of Picard right away. His cock was salty sweet and extraordinarily soft against his tongue, and the lights in his body were bright and beautiful. _He_ was beautiful. Never had Q done something he was more proud of than making all that beauty fill up with joy and desire. 

"Ooooo, yes!" Picard's velvet voice had gone rough and deep, and Q reflected that Jean-Luc could probably make _him_ come simply by speaking to him. "Q...lover...Q, _my_ lover, let me come...let me come in your gorgeous mouth." 

_No, damnit!_ Q thought, and released him. Picard cried -- tears and sobs and all -- as frustration once against flared and burned throughout his body. His whole being was pleading while his ragged voice begged without shame: 

"Please, Q...please...anything...I'll do anything...do anything to me...please. I have to come. Don't you under...stand? I _have_ to come." 

"Yes, you do," Q murmured in agreement, looking over the lights which almost dazzled him. It was time, why was he hesitating? 

Because he'd wanted to do this for so long -- whether he realized it or not -- that he couldn't believe it was finally going to happen. 

"Look at me, Jean-Luc," Q ordered, and the man's eyes obediently opened. Q raised himself up on his knees, bringing his straining, massive erection into Picard's line of sight. The man gasped at it, and Q felt him struggling to accept what was happening. "I'm going to fill you up, then I'm going to let you come." 

Q felt the man shudder deeply and then simply chuck his indecisions out the proverbial airlock as he drew his legs back and up. Q had no intention of losing sight of Picard's face, and so fluffed up the pillows under his body to rise the man up a bit before grabbing those beautiful legs and wrapping them around his back. 

"Lesson time, Jean-Luc," Q whispered, then took a lubricated finger and traced a few circles around his puckered opening, making sure to hit all the right spots. Picard was still crying, but now he began little whimpers that occasionally shot up into little screams. He didn't need to be told this time to watch. 

Q's finger penetrated him deeply, and the entity was glad to feel that Picard's long balance on the knife-edge of pleasure had already relaxed his muscles. Q stroked his tiny gland and watched the man's sensual but unsurprised response. Yes, they were still on familiar ground. With a private little breath, which he held, Q withdrew his finger and then plunged in two, almost roughly. 

Picard gasped and barked "What?" as his body lit like a Roman candle. "Ohhhhhh, God!" 

Smiling, Q twisted his fingers inside his lover and added a third. Picard was shouting little words now quite nicely. When Q withdrew his fingers, the man's body protested by tightening the embrace of his legs around Q's body, and Q allowed that pressure to move him slowly forward until the tip of his weeping, almost over-taxed erection was pressed against Jean-Luc's anus. Locking his gaze now onto those hazel eyes which spilled tears and yet somehow stayed with him, Q entered him, shuddering as that heat and pressure and strength and sweetness all enfolded around him, pleasuring him all down the length of his cock and then all through his body. He pushed forward and back, and Jean-Luc's body was lit like a Christmas tree. It seemed as though Q were pushing into a small universe of stars and the flesh he now caressed over Picard's hips was luminescent marble to his touch. 

Buried now at long last, completely inside, Q bent forward and stated clearly, "Mon Capitaine, I'm fucking you." 

Picard screamed then and came, Q pumping him deep and hard even as semen spurted from the man's cock, his body arched and flared so brightly Q was blinded, and the man's ecstasy shot through Q as an energy blast. They were both screaming now and Q thrust one last time before his own essence pumped out, filling the man's body with Q's own matter and energy and triggering a second orgasm in Picard before the first one had finished. 

As Q collapsed against Jean-Luc, he wasn't sure if the lights he was still seeing were from Jean-Luc's body or his own. The release of energy had been unique in Q's experience, and he didn't know how or why it had felt like it did. He did know one thing though: he knew that he wanted more of it. A lot more of it. He was still inside Jean-Luc and he could feel his erection twitching and getting hard again. 

Jean-Luc could apparently feel it as well, for he opened his eyes and looked at Q. "More?" he breathed. 

"What do you think?" Q asked, pumping his hips a little and watching another ripple of light chase across Picard's body. 

"I think," Picard replied, a hint of his earlier flirtatious look in his eyes, "that you said something earlier about turning me over..." 

Before the man could finish the sentence, Q had pulled out of him and was flipping him over on the bed. As quickly as he could manage, Jean-Luc was getting into position on his knees. Q stared as the man went down onto his elbows and arched his hips up. "So eager for it?" he asked even as he moved into position behind that gorgeous ass. 

"Oh yes," Picard replied, "and I'm not the only one." 

"Jean-Luc, you're making way too much sense. We can't have that." Q probed carefully with his fingers. While they hadn't done much earlier, he didn't want to hurt Jean-Luc. "You're a little sore, aren't you?" 

"Yes," Picard replied, no trace of concern in his voice. "And if you're going to fuck me until I stop making sense, I'm going to be a lot more sore in the morning." As if sensing Q's worries, the captain added, "I'm rather looking forward to knowing you were there every time I sit down." That odd note of challenge was back in Picard's voice, as if, once again, the man thought Q needed to be persuaded. 

_I can always heal him up if it's too much,_ Q told himself. After all, Jean-Luc was asking for exactly what Q wanted to give him. Trying to stifle the nagging worry, Q rested the head of his cock against the man's tight opening. "Is that what you want, Jean-Luc?" 

"Yes." Q did nothing. "Please, please Q." 

"Why?" 

Picard didn't reply right away, and Q eased his way in slowly. When Jean-Luc tried to thrust back against him, the entity gripped Picard's hips and stopped him. "Answer the question," he demanded, forcing himself to continue sliding slowly into that tight heat. He teased Jean-Luc once he was inside, withdrawing a little and then going back in, waiting for the sound of Jean-Luc's voice to spur him on. 

"Please...I...want you..." 

"What was that?" Q teased again, and watched the light of Picard's nerves intensify. 

"I want you to...fuck me..." 

"More," Q demanded. "Come on Jean-Luc," he coaxed as Jean-Luc hesitated. "You were so verbal earlier, back when you were teasing me." 

"I..." 

Q started to withdraw. 

"I want you to fuck me!" Picard yelled out. Q remained still, knowing that Jean-Luc needed all the help he could get at this point. "Fuck me and...keep fucking me until...there's nothing...but you...until I don't know anything but...that you're there...inside me...damnit, Q!" Picard became silent for a moment, obviously trying to speak more clearly. 

"I want you," he said, his voice husky and warm, "to do what you said you'd do to me. I want you to do what I've always wanted you to do to me. Strip me down until there's nothing left but pleasure, nothing but me coming in ecstasy. Oh, please, Q...fuck me until I can't remember anything but you fucking me. Please..?" 

"Oh yes," Q murmured. "I think I can do that." He withdrew a little further. "And you know what, Jean-Luc?" 

"What?" Jean-Luc gasped out. 

"I _want_ to do that." With his words, Q thrust back into Picard. The captain screamed and spread his legs wider, letting Q go in deeper. Gritting his teeth against the sensation of those hot tight muscles around his cock, Q clung to Picard's hips with a death grip and thrust again and again. Beneath him, Jean-Luc was continuously screaming, his body straining to meet Q's thrusts, and Q could hear his own harsh grunts getting louder. He wanted there to be nothing in their minds but this hot sweet human connection, nothing but this wild climb to ecstasy. 

And so to achieve that nothingness Q stopped worrying about being in control and just fucked Jean-Luc as hard and fast as he could. He was a Q, though, and couldn't help noticing that the man's hands had made fists around the dark green sheets, that he was still crying while he screamed and thrust back against Q, ramming his cock deep inside his own body, that he was trying to say something and not succeeding, and that pleasure shucked off his consciousness and into the room -- and all through Q -- as though it were a font of liquid light. Q set his teeth and plunged into Picard over and over and over, deeper and harder while Picard's whole body shone with quickfire. 

"Yes!" Picard howled, and Q knew the man wasn't even aware of the words coming from his own mouth. "Oh...oh! Oui! Tres...yes!...bon!" 

"Voulez-vous?" Q couldn't help panting out, though he knew Picard wouldn't hear it. 

"Oh! Oh! Yes! God!" 

"Jean-Luc, you feel so good," Q said quietly, his words almost drowned out in his own furious breathing and heart-felt groans. "I'd given up on anything feeling this good." 

The waterfall of the man's pleasure beat down on them both, and Q finally dived into that deluge and came, his hot cum imbuing Picard with the flavor of euphoria matched by his own pleasure in being filled, and their shared climax was doubled and redoubled by each other's ecstasy. 

And then Q felt it: just a touch of fear from Picard as he was consumed by his own white-hot joy, a slight struggle against the warm sea of unconsciousness which beckoned him. 

"I've got you," Q gasped, wanting nothing more than to be with Picard as the man lay completely vulnerable and sated beneath him. "I've got you. I won't let anything happen to you." 

Q could feel Picard choosing to give in, and somehow it was just as good as the sex: being trusted like this. Jean-Luc relaxed completely and let go, and soon he was breathing deeply and evenly, practically snoring, under Q as the entity -- almost jealous of Picard's ability to sleep -- rested against him a long, long moment, then eased out of him and assessed the damage to Picard's mortal body. 

The skin inside his rectum was torn in spots and quite tender. With a snap, Q cleaned them both up and healed Picard. His muscles would still be sore, but the pain wouldn't be anything too unpleasant. The night, after all, was hardly over. 

Q sat on the bed now, his left hand almost absently caressing the man's chest and stomach as he considered the next round of entertainments. With a grin, Q realized what he wanted and snapped his fingers again, then settled back on the bed to watch Picard sleep. 

Almost two hours later, the man woke up, and, almost instantly, his eyes went wide in his face. 

"I hope," Q drawled, "that you haven't had to bad manners to forget who you went to bed with." He smiled as the mere sound of his voice sent a ripple of response running through Jean-Luc. 

"No, not at all," Picard replied, his deep voice evoking a pretty sharp response in Q. "It's just that I went to sleep in a different bed." 

"Oh, that," Q said airily. He looked around as if only now realizing that they were somewhere else. If the room before had been somber and dark, this one was bright and airy. The bed was still large, but it was now a thick quilted mattress resting on a floor which was covered in fine woven straw matting. The light was all indirect, coming from behind paper screens and carved wooden lanterns. The sound of waves washing on to a beach could be heard. 

"Pacifia," Picard said. "The Southernmost Island." 

"Point to you." 

"What time..." Picard began. 

"Ah ah, Jean-Luc. You mustn't ask that question. I'll take you down to the end of the town, but you'll be back in time for tea." 

Picard seemed to struggle with that for a moment, and Q held his breath. Then the captain was smiling at him. "Just don't ask me to wear a golden gown." 

"Oh please, Mon Capitaine, gold is _not_ your color." He leaned over and ran his tongue over one of Jean-Luc's ears, causing a shudder. 

"Q, you seem to forget that, at my age and...ohhh..." 

Ignoring Picard's words, Q had continued his exploration of Picard's ear, and was now nibbling on the lobe. He also reached down and toyed lightly with one of Jean-Luc's nipples. "You will find," he breathed into the man's ear, "that there are many advantages to being _my_ lover. How many times have I made you come already, hmmm?" 

"Three," Picard replied. "You're spoiling me." There was a faint note of disapproval in his voice and Q frowned a little. 

"Exactly," he whispered. "Remember? I'm giving you something that you want but can't ask for." His hand glided down the man's side, fingers pausing to caress that one spot on Jean-Luc's hip. Jean-Luc arched into the caress and moaned a little. "And the more I do it, the more sensitive to it you'll become. By the time this night is over, you're going to be _very_ sensitive." 

"I seem to recall a promise that you would let me make _you_ feel good." 

"You have, already. Better than I...better than you can know." Q shied away from any truly sweeping declarations. Right now, Jean-Luc was infatuated with the pleasure Q had given him and Q was infatuated with the pleasure of driving Picard crazy. That had to be enough for now. "But I know what you want, and my promise still holds. You get me, tomorrow night, for as long as I have you tonight. But for now, you are mine to spoil." Almost casually, Q laid a light hand on Picard's swelling penis. It twitched and got harder, as the captain sighed with quiet pleasure. Q smiled. The soft sigh was as intoxicating to hear as Picard's earlier screams had been. He slid a hand along the length of Jean-Luc's erection, leaving a thin coating of oil over it. Picard thrust up, but Q's hand had already moved on to the man's hip, still spreading oil into him. 

"You seem," Picard said, voice already husky with desire, "to like spreading oil all over me." 

"I have my reasons," Q replied as the lightly spicy scent of the oil began to fill the air. "for one thing, it helps my fingers slide all over your incredible skin. Of course there's also the fact that..." He rubbed some oil into the skin of Picard's flank, and the man caught his breath. 

"What..?" 

"It won't seriously burn or itch or sting or anything nasty like that," Q assured him. "I just want to make sure you remember it's there. You never looked at yourself last night when I had you all oiled up, did you?" He began to smooth the oil across the skin of Jean-Luc's thighs, and his actions were rewarded with an almost continuous low moan. "Do you feel what I'm doing to you? How I'm showing you pleasure after pleasure? I'm going to keep doing that, Jean-Luc. _My_ lover deserves it." Of course, Q thought as Picard hesitantly nodded, he was showing himself pleasure after pleasure. Now that he'd accomplished his initial intention, he was reveling in touching this new and beautiful lover in ways he'd never been touched. 

"I love it when you nod like that," Q murmured, "but I'd like to hear you say it." 

Picard seemed uncertain of his instructions, but managed to moan distinctly, "Feels good." He spread his legs to help Q reach the inside of his thighs, moaning more as those large warm hands moved so close to his center. 

Q shook his head and "tsked" with his tongue, moving on to rub the oil into Picard's right calf muscle. About this time, the man would begin to understand what Q had meant about the oil's properties. As the solution penetrated his skin, it began to heat up. As Q had promised, it didn't burn unpleasantly. Instead it felt wildly sensual and powerfully erotic. Picard had become hard again, as hard as he had been that whole night -- which is to say as hard as he had been his whole life -- as the tingling burn grew and intensified and reached all the way down to his bones. 

"Ohhh, oh God!" Picard shouted hoarsely, rocking his head from side to side as the oil over his erection began to smolder. "Oh! Q! It's..." Q bit his lip, wondering if he'd misjudged, if it were too much, but the man only groaned louder and relaxed into the tension of hot desire, and Q concentrated again on his task, looking over the brilliant light-lattice of his lover's pleasure and smiling with deep contentment. His hands reached Picard's feet and worked oil over the tough skin humans grew at the very bottom of themselves. Q found the concept oddly amusing, and chuckled a bit. 

"Good," the man was groaning now. "So...damn...good." 

"You like this?" 

Picard's hands moved then without direction, flapping back and forth a bit as though to express some sort of inner disbelief that Q would ask. 

"You'd like this over the rest of your body?" 

"Please. _Please,_ Q." 

"Then tell me why I should." 

Picard frowned, and seemed to be trying to think. He didn't speak, though, and Q loved the idea that with all his intelligence and control, Picard almost couldn't work his way through a simple request. 

"Do it...because I'm your lover," Jean-Luc said finally, "and your lover...deserves it." 

Laughing with delight now, Q moved up and began working the oil into his arms. It was quite a task, and Q took his time, watching Picard's legs jerk as his feet began their light burn, watching his whole body twist and twitch. Oh, but it was good to sit here naked beside this man and rub pure pleasure into his body. Q had grown hard again rather quickly when this started, and now in this position, his erection was right near the soft flesh under Picard's little hip bone. Q couldn't resist, and leaned forward slightly to touch him ever so gently with the tip of his penis. 

Picard's eyes flew open, and his left hand darted to that spot to take Q's erection in a light grasp. 

"Ohh!" Q shuddered and fought a strong wave of heat. "Oh, bad, Jean-Luc!" 

He had expected the man to chuckle and say something smug, but instead his voice was openly pleading as the hazel eyes looked fiercely into his own. "You're so soft and you feel so good." Picard's palm was against him now, and rubbing him in light little movements. "I feel like --" A deep blush spread with amazing speed over his face and neck. 

Q was intrigued enough to forget his pose of displeasure. Jean-Luc's hand _did_ feel wonderful, after all. "Feel like what?" 

But Picard only got redder and increased the pressure of his hand. 

Q used everything he had to keep his voice firm and even. "Jean-Luc, you can touch me for a moment if you must, but stop stroking me and tell me what you were going to say, or I swear I will tie you to this bed and go for a long, relaxing swim. 

With overt effort, Picard stilled his hand and worked his jaw and finally said in a small voice, "I feel as though you made this part of yourself just for me to play with, and I want to...play with it." Q stifled a deep groan and kept his eyes from closing. "I want to touch it and...kiss it...and...take it inside my body...and my...mouth...and...whatever else I can think of to do with it to make you feel good." 

Q sighed, and it was a rough sound. This was something he'd never thought he'd get from Picard, and it shook him and pleasured him and made him ache. "Tomorrow night, Jean-Luc. I _promise._ Tomorrow night you can do whatever you like with it...with me." 

"But why..?" 

Q frowned fiercely. "You're laying there with your fourth erection of the night and questioning my methods?" 

The man shook his head roughly, and Q was amazed to see a thin film of tears in his eyes. "No, no. I just... _need_..." 

"You _need_ to do what I say. Picard, do you have _any_ idea how repressed you are? This entire conversation is just a way for you to distract yourself from how good you feel. Now let go and lay back and _enjoy_ this." 

With something like a sob, the captain released him, groaning instantly when the oil seemed to grow just a little hotter as Q rubbed it into the tops of his shoulders and the aching muscles of his neck. 

"Jean-Luc," Q murmured, "if you're so worried about making me feel good, then do what I'm asking you to do. Let yourself _go._ " 

"Oh...it's so hard..." 

"I know, but trust me, you want to feel everything that I give you." Q smiled as Picard shuddered as the oil Q had rubbed into the back of his neck warmed up. The entity stopped rubbing to trace a lazy pattern on the back of Picard's neck and the man cried out as his neural net lit up wildly. "Don't you?" 

"I...shouldn't...but...oh God..." 

Q let him get away with silence, and brought his oily hands around to Jean-Luc's collar bone. Just the touch made more light flare under Jean-Luc's skin, and Q couldn't wait until the burn started. His hands slipped downwards now, deliberately avoiding Picard's nipples as they smoothed more oil across the man's sculpted chest. Jean-Luc was crying out and arching his chest, trying to get Q to touch his nipples, but Q waited until Picard's whole body was on fire before he moved in. Knowing that it wasn't the touch, but the oil, that would make the difference Q just lightly brushed those tight nubs with his slick fingers. 

Calculating the timing carefully, Q spoke at exactly the right moment. "Tell me you want this Jean-Luc. Tell me that you're going to let me do this." 

"I...want to...but...Ohhh God!" For a moment, Picard couldn't speak through his scream. Worried, Q checked Picard's pain level, but it was only pleasure that made Jean-Luc go wild. "Ohhhh...so very...tres bon...oh yes...oui..." Startled, Q realized the he had a quick decision to make. "More!" Jean-Luc yelled. There was suddenly nothing of the altruistic lover now; Picard wasn't asking, he was demanding. "Now!...I want you...please Q...I want you do...whatever you want...feels so goood." 

Q smiled, Jean-Luc had just made his decision easy. He reached down and began to lightly toy with Jean-Luc's nipples. Picard began to twist and moan, practically throwing Q's hands off his chest. Delighted, Q tugged a little harder, and the moans turned to loud cries as Picard suddenly went rigid and seemed almost afraid. "Please... I can't...I'm too close..." 

Q backed off a little, and Jean-Luc held his breath and went still, as if he were trying to convince Q that he wasn't all that close to an orgasm. The lights under his skin told a different story; there was a tight coil of energy that only needed a little spark. And because Jean-Luc deserved it, Q ignited that spark. Bending down, he fastened his lips on one nipple and began to suck hard as he rolled the other between his thumb and forefinger. 

"Oh...I can't...not like...ohhhhh..." 

Q nibbled and pinched just a little harder. Jean-Luc curled up slightly, yelled Q's name at the top of his lungs and came. Slippery with the oil that was rubbing off Jean-Luc's skin and the hot semen that seemed to be everywhere, Q moved up to hold Jean-Luc. The captain was whimpering slightly as he came down from his peak. 

"How...I never...I didn't think...that I could...like that..." He paused, trying to catch his breath. "Q, it's so good with you. It's never...been like this with anyone before." 

"Shh," Q hushed. 

"No," Picard said, his voice steadying. "I have to tell you that you're right, and I have to...thank you for this. Even if..." He caught himself and reached up to grab Q by the back of the neck. Dragging the entity's head down, Picard kissed him hard. 

Unable to resist either the kisses or his own throbbing erection, Q moved until he was on top of the man's slick body. Grabbing Jean-Luc's arms, he moved his erection over the sleek skin of Picard's hip. It didn't take long; as soon as Q let go of his control on himself, he screamed into Picard's mouth and came, grinding himself against Jean-Luc until the final stab of ecstasy ripped through him. 

His human cum had spurted all through the spaces between their bodies, and both of them lazily chuckled as the warm lubricant from so many different sources made them so slick Q promptly slid to one side. Feeling exhaustion in his physical form battling with his unsated need to make love to Jean-Luc, Q raised his head and looked into Picard's heavy-lidded eyes and smiled. 

"You're right," Q said, voice full of rumbling humor, "I did make my cock for you. I made this whole body for you when we met before Farpoint. Moreover, I'm beginning to think you were made for me...or at least, made for what we're doing. Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Defender of Humanity, and you're just a little sex kitten who can't get enough." 

"Oh, really, Q!" Picard looked extremely annoyed and embarrassed. 

"You should see your face when you come," Q went on, his own face almost beaming, although a warning had gone off in his consciousness that the night was getting closer to its end. "Like some sort of poster boy for orgasms." Picard began to squirm a bit beneath him, but despite the lubrication, which with a simple thought Q kept from cooling, Q held him tight. "I'm never going to be able to see you open your mouth again without wanting to kiss it or watch it suck on my cock. I'm never going to hear your voice say something again without wanting it to scream my name in ecstasy and beg for more." 

Picard was squirming with somewhat more determination now, and Q let him, happily aware that in a moment the captain would get a surprise. His whole body had come around at last, the light-lattice reduced only to banked embers by its last climax. 

"I also think you should be aware that whenever you bend over I'm going to be tempted...perhaps beyond what even a Q can withstand..." 

"Q," Picard growled, "if you think for one...ohhhh!" 

Surprise time. Through his anger, the man had realized he was hard again, especially since Q had pressed his own renewed erection against his. 

"You were saying, Jean-Luc?" 

Picard tried to speak, while the lights under his skin flared hotter than even Q had been expecting. "Ohhh, I need..." 

"What?" Q watched the man struggle with himself and sighed. Perhaps he'd teased him more than he should, but he wanted...oh, he wanted so many things, and Picard made everything so much more difficult that it had to be. Of course, considering the man's history, Q understood, but still... "What do you need?" 

A tear escaped one of Jean-Luc's eyes and Q, struck with sorrow, kissed it gently away. "It's all right," he whispered. "I know what you need." 

In response, Picard held him close and kissed him again, spreading his legs under the entity and drawing his knees back and up. Q ended the kiss, smiled, and then urged Picard over on his stomach instead. The man sighed and complied, filled with lust and need and yet evidently too worn out to get on his elbows and knees, pressing himself against the sheets instead and spreading his legs out. 

And then Q added in something new. Picard gasped as a sort of mirror bubble rose up and around the bed. Everywhere that the man looked he could see himself spread out and waiting while Q's shining body was repositioned on the bed, his cock jutting out towards the center of Jean-Luc's opened legs, a simple promise, and Picard groaned, energy returning to his body with pure excitement. 

"Yes, please, Q. Fuck me. Oh! It's all I want." 

Q smiled, knowing Picard could see his smile, and then moved as though he were going to comply. Placing his oily hands on the man's buttocks, he spread him wide, listened to the man moan, and then...bent down his head and deeply kissed that puckered opening to the man's body and listened to him hic-cough in surprise before he howled in pleasure. 

"Oh, God! Q! I...I can see you doing...that's...so good...more...I never...you...bon, bon, bon...oh, merde! merde!...Oh God! Look at you...your body...so beautiful and you're...how did you know...oh! please let me come this way...I'll repay you...whatever you like...let me come..." 

Q was having a ball. There was something about being human and using one's mouth on things that using one's fingers just couldn't compete with. He could see the dazzling lights the motions of his lips and tongue were generating in both their bodies, and it was easy to imagine -- with his Q imagination -- the warm, unique... _squishy_ feeling Picard found so unexpected and good in this part of himself he had neglected to appreciate properly for his whole life, until now. And the thought of how grateful Picard would be with his misguided sense that a lover wouldn't enjoy giving _him_ pleasure as much as he enjoyed giving it to others, the thought of what Picard meant by "repayment" -- well, that sort of gratitude for Q was unexpected and warm and unique as well. 

Suddenly, Picard's howls were so loud and intense they could only be called low-voiced squeals, and his legs were kicking and his body was writhing, and half-choked words were now constantly pleading for release at any cost. 

So Q reluctantly released his hold on Picard's nervous system once again, and the man tightened under his ministrations and howled his name and came, actually burning Q's hands with the heat from his energy's release as Q raised his head and pointed his consciousness into that blast of ecstasy Q realized dimly he had grown addicted to. He couldn't get enough. Couldn't have enough. And a quick read of Picard's system showed that while he could easily just fall into slumber for several hours now, he could take one more round before overloading. 

So Q didn't let go of Picard's hips, raising himself up and positioning them both even as Picard was still reeling from the last explosive climax. 

"Stay with me, Jean-Luc," Q said, as he slid into the tight heat of Picard's body. It was easier than it had been last time, and Q resisted the urge to move as fast and as hard as he could. This was going to be slow and steady, because he wanted Jean-Luc to get a good look at himself. He wanted Jean-Luc to see himself as Q saw him now, sex and pleasure and joy all wrapped up in a gorgeous physical shell. 

"Always," Picard murmured so softly that Q almost didn't hear him. The mirror was right there and Q caught his own stunned expression as he reacted to the promise. He squashed the elation, telling himself that he was not ready to think about anything but the moment and the man stretched out beneath him. 

Q began to move, knowing that Picard could see the two of them like this. What he hadn't counted on was seeing it himself. With his senses tuned to read the light-lattice of Jean-Luc's nervous system, Q could also see his own human nervous system and it was as blinding as Jean-Luc's. Suddenly wanting to see what Picard saw, Q let go of both his enhanced vision and his control on Jean-Luc's responses and went at this the way a human would, guided only by the sounds and the feel of his lover. "So good," Q moaned as he moved slowly in and out of Jean-Luc's ass, entranced by the sight of the two of them together like this. 

"Oui," Picard murmured almost dreamily. He was obviously responding to Q's change of pace and his own fatigue and Q looked into the mirror to see Jean-Luc's expression. The man's eyes were half-closed, although Q could see that he was still watching the mirror. Otherwise, Jean-Luc's body was almost limp with pleasure, and Q realized with delight that he wasn't resisting his urge to just lie there and be taken care of. 

"That's right," Q said softly, ruthlessly distancing himself from his own pleasure so that he could speak evenly. "See that, Jean-Luc? See me fucking you, moving in and out of your body?" 

"Yes," the man replied. 

"And you feel it, don't you?" Q thrust in and remained still for a moment. 

"Mmm hmm . .. feel you inside my ass...God, you feel soooo good..." 

"And what are you doing?" 

A dreamy smile appeared on Jean-Luc's relaxed face, making him look all of 20 years old. "Lying here..." He chuckled, and seemed to gather his intelligence . "Yes, Q, you've made your point. I'm lying here like a pampered harem toy...Q's little sex kitten...I should be alarmed, but all I can think about is that, in a moment or two, you're going to start moving in and out of me again." Q suited his actions to Picard's words and Picard moaned, a low languorous sound that spoke of nothing but pleasure. "Moving," that soft baritone whisper said. "Moving into me...so deep...and so hot..." He paused and then spread his legs wider and raised his ass to match Q's slow rhythm. "See what...you do to me...what you've done..?" 

"Yes," Q gasped out. 

The breathless, low-voiced narrative continued. "You're watching me...watching me spread...to get more of you...feels so good inside me...you can see that can't you...you can see that...I'm nothing...but sensation right now...you like that..." 

"Yes...and I like...moving into you...it's so maddening like this...but seeing you...listening to you...knowing that you are...lost in this..." 

"Lost in the...feel of you...fucking me...lost in the look...on my own face...the way you...look...the way _we_ look..." Picard suddenly paused. "Q...stop...please...for just a moment..." 

Q stopped, exerting all of his will power in the process. "Jean-Luc? What's..?" 

"Nothing is wrong," Picard said, but there was a faint worried frown on his face. "It's just that...I'm doing it again, aren't I?" 

"Doing what?" Q asked. 

"Trying to control things..." Picard sighed. "I keep... _thinking._ " He frowned and Q almost melted, finding Jean-Luc's soft frown almost endearing. 

"Ask for it then..." the entity said, knowing that Picard would know what he meant. 

"Can you...would you fuck me hard now? And then..." And Picard stopped, his inner conflict obvious on his face. Q waited, knowing that this moment was supremely important, that Jean-Luc was about to ask for something that he hadn't ever asked a lover for. Tenderly, he reached down and caressed Jean-Luc's hip, making the touch more soothing than overtly sexual. "Then...stay with me...while I go...when I...go under...I mean..." 

"Shhh," Q said softly. "You don't need to say more. I'll be right here. I promise." For a moment their eyes met in the mirror and Q noted that Picard's eyes were much lighter than usual, as if that inner lattice of light were reflected in their green-gold depths. 

Then, with an almost wicked little smile, Jean-Luc moved until he was on his knees again, his head cradled in his arms. Staring that the mirrored reflection of their two bodies, the captain spoke. "You have to fuck me now," he said, every word clear. "Here I am, a 'redolent slave to sensation,' and it's all your fault and now you have to give me that sensation that I _need._ " And for a moment, the look he'd given Q as he dropped his robe so many hours ago crossed his face. "Isn't that why you came here tonight?" 

"I'll show you," Q growled, "why I came here tonight. I came here to fuck you senseless, to listen to you wanting more and more until you...go under in ecstasy." He grabbed Picard's lean hips and laughed. "Hang on, Jean-Luc." 

Picard laughed as well, but there was an odd note in it that made Q hesitate. 

"What?" the entity asked, his body screaming at him to hurry up and fuck the man who surrounded his cock. 

"I feel..." Jean-Luc hesitated, flushing red again. "It seems so safe here..." 

"Yes, you're safe," Q assured him easily. "And everything will be all right while you sleep: you, your ship, everything you watch over. While you sleep, I'll make sure it's all safe." With a mental snap, Q reached out and ensured that the Enterprise would indeed be all right for the next few hours -- as well as Marie, and the range of Picard's old friends. He even threw his safety net over Wesley and the Traveler. 

Picard shuddered and tensed. "You...can't..." 

"It's just for a little while, Jean-Luc, I promise. Can't you feel what I'm doing? My cock is in your ass, I'm watching you close, and everyone you care about will be safe while you sleep. You can take all the pleasure you like without punishment, without penalty, without harm to anyone or anything. In fact, if you deny yourself pleasure you'll deny me, your lover, pleasure. How can you be so selfish that you're not going to come as hard as you can?" 

Picard was silent and still a moment, then finally spoke: "How can you give me so much?" 

"Look at me, Jean-Luc," Q ordered, waiting until the hazel eyes made contact with his own in the bubble-mirror. "Not you this time, me. See me deep inside your ass?" Picard didn't answer and Q withdrew quickly and thrust hard. "See me?" 

Picard whimpered on the withdrawal and groaned with the thrust. "Yes." 

"So you tell me who's giving what to whom." 

Picard continued to look at him in the mirror and then simply closed his eyes and seemed to surrender. Though the man remained in position, Q could feel him relaxing throughout his whole body. Q was pleased to realize that he knew the man well enough now not to need enhanced vision in order to calculate the angle and pitch of his thrusts. He simply plunged in again the way he knew it would feel good for both of them, and surprised himself by almost coming immediately. 

Firmly, he got a grip, distancing himself from his own pleasure while he moved into rhythm and rode Jean-Luc hard and fast. 

_Tomorrow night,_ he thought suddenly, _I won't have to be in control._ And now he was overcome by thoughts of what Picard might do to him...if this lasted...if he really meant what he was saying. _Look at him,_ Q ordered himself, staring into the mirror which showed them both so clearly: Q with his eyes half-closed and his skin flushed and gleaming as each muscle strained and released, pumping his hips against Picard's perfect, tight, hot little ass; Picard, with his eyes closed and his strong features relaxed and blissful. 

"There's nothing but me, is there?" Q asked, his voice all a mix of command and pleading. 

Picard made a sound Q knew was agreement. His whole body was more eloquent in response, moving with him in its languid bliss. Q grunted in satisfaction and let himself concentrate on the rough joy of feeling Picard's inner muscles massage his cock. In and out, hard and good. The man was moaning now, louder and louder, his body beginning to strain. Q felt his own body getting ready to come. 

The loud howls and screams did not return, but the quiet grunts and sobs Picard made spoke more clearly of pleasure. Q pumped as hard now as he could, feeling the burn in his muscles and the pumping urgency of his cock. Jean-Luc was doing virtually nothing now but lying there and taking it, taking in the pleasure Q gave him, and as he began to come the man's whole body tensed and then, with a quiet sort of scream and a deep, profound convulsion, Picard came, and Q came in him: a long moment of shared release so good Q felt like a sun being born. 

The captain immediately blacked out, his breaths going steady and deep as Q simply lay atop him and listened. 

_I'll never be the same,_ Q thought, his stunned state allowing unemotional frankness. _I don't know what it means, but I'll never be the same._

There was no rush, so the entity took his time pulling out of Jean-Luc, healing him up again a bit but leaving him sore enough to "know Q was there" when he sat down. 

In fact, Q had an idea, and, using his index finger as a pen, wrote a little something on Picard's backside, chuckling to himself. 

Next he cleaned them up and thought a nice warm blanket over them and made one of the walls of the room disappear so that Q could watch the waves roll on to the shore. It seemed incredibly beautiful. Everything seemed incredibly beautiful. Q rested against the padded headboard and whipped himself up a human drink -- a Seamyst, actually -- which he held in one hand as his other wrapped around his lover and held him against his chest. 

"Until tomorrow night," Q murmured before reaching down to plant a kiss on the top Picard's head. " _Mon_ Capitaine." 

  
Q left Picard sleeping in his bed on the Enterprise. He didn't want to leave, nor did he want the night to end, but he knew that if he pushed things, Picard would balk and get concerned about the timeline and fret about his ship, and be generally unable to relax. He also knew that if he stayed and were there when Picard woke up, there would be a morning after conversation with both of them feeling awkward and ill-at-ease. And so it was better to leave, as the clock reached five minutes before the computer would interfere and summon Jean-Luc to his day. 

Of course, being a Q, Q didn't exactly leave, he just side-slipped a little, existing in a place between dimensions that was close enough to Picard's own dimension that Q could see the object of his desire. It was maddening to watch as the captain awoke, told his alarm to stop and stretched. Q almost burst in on the man as he saw Jean-Luc's smile as he rolled over and realized that last night had not been a dream. And when Jean-Luc picked up the piece of paper lying on his other pillow, Q waited with delicious anticipation. Written on the note were the words, "Look yourself over in the mirror." 

Frowning slightly, Picard headed for the full-length mirror, then looked at his naked body rather impatiently. _I've got to get him to see just how good he looks,_ Q thought. _If_ I _looked like that, I'd stand in front of a mirror for hours._ He chuckled to himself; while he could look however he wanted to look, he'd chosen this form for a number of reasons, and now he would stay with it as long as he needed to be human. After all, he'd had this form last night, and last night was one of the best experiences of his long, lonely life. 

Picard frowned and turned around to look at his back and then twisted slightly as the words Q had written on his ass became visible: "It's your turn tonight." Still chuckling, the captain turned and headed for the bathroom. Q knew he should really leave now and let Jean-Luc have his privacy, but once he heard the water running in the shower, he couldn't resist peeking. What he saw again made him regret his decision to leave Picard alone. Jean-Luc stood in the shower, head tilted back and the water pouring down over his face and body. After a moment, he began to wash himself off, looking like a man trying to ignore a serious distraction. The reason for the expression didn't become clear until he was out of the shower and drying himself off. As the towel moved across his chest, Picard gasped and let it drop to the floor. With a look of surprise on his face, he raised his hand and brushed a thumb across one of his nipples, closing his eyes and moaning a little at the reaction. 

_I will_ not _phase in and tell him to keep doing that while I go on my knees in front of him. I won't,_ Q added, _I won't, I won't._ A sudden chime from the computer made Picard jump slightly and he headed back into the bedroom, ignoring the faint beginnings of an erection his actions had produced. Q could see it as he got dressed: Jean-Luc, the lovely, wild, lover of the night before, gave way to the calm, cool, collected Captain Picard. Although Q understood the reasons for it and was even prepared to admit that Picard was astoundingly good at what he did, he didn't want to see the transformation made complete and so he left as Picard headed for the door. The entity paused only long enough to wrap a faint shield around the captain. Troi, with all her concerns, would know that her captain was in a good mood, but would not be able to understand why, regardless of what Picard thought about during the course of the day. 

Q wandered aimlessly for a while, trying to ignore his feelings about what had happened last night. He didn't want to start that now, didn't want to worry about what ifs and the fact that Picard was mortal or any of the rest of the differences between two nights of mind-blowing pleasure and whatever happened after those two nights. _Tomorrow,_ Q told himself, missing the irony of a Q thinking in terms of the primitive methods that humans used to tell time. Finally his curiosity got the better of him, and he headed for the Enterprise. 

The Alpha watch was almost over and Picard was on the bridge. He looked pensive, but not upset, and Q simply looked at him. Oh, the temptation to freeze time and pull Jean-Luc out of it was strong. He could straddle the captain's lap while he sat in the big chair and they could kiss until they both got dizzy. Q looked at Picard again. There were other possibilities, of course. If Jean-Luc stood up, faced his chair and bent over with his hand on the armrests, Q could wish his uniform away (or at least drag his pants down) and fuck him like that. Q tried to focus on the here and now, watching as Picard answered a question from Troi about something that wasn't important. The watch changed, Data and the Beta watch crew coming onto the bridge and Riker and the Alpha crew leaving. Picard rose and went to his ready room, Q following him and wishing that these new uniforms were as tight as the one Jean-Luc had been wearing when they first met. 

Q watched as Captain Perfect went to his replicator and ordered tea. He then moved to the desk and sat down, where, all of a sudden, he was Jean-Luc the lover again. There it was, a faint smile as he undoubtedly felt the soreness that he'd wanted to feel. Picard brushed a hand over his scalp in a languid gesture and then called up some information on his monitor. Unable to resist, Q looked over his shoulder and discovered that the Captain of the Federation's Flagship was looking at smut. Well, it wasn't exactly erotic fiction, but he was reading something about things that men did with other men and he was chuckling slightly. 

Wanting to be surprised, Q let his attention wander elsewhere, and he found himself looking at the aquarium Jean-Luc had had installed during the Enterprise-E's most recent refit. Picard had named his new lion fish "Neuss," after a 22nd century human archeologist, and Q lounged near the aquarium and split his attention between Picard, and, when watching Picard became too tempting, the fish. 

He was about to leave and find something to blow up or poke his nose into in order to pass the time, when suddenly, Picard sighed and, leaning his elbows on the desk, buried his head in his hands. "Oh, God," the captain whispered. Tempted beyond reason, Q effortlessly picked up the subvocal continuation of the man's concerns: _I can't do this...it's all too much and I don't know what is going on with us. What if he...or what if I..._ Jean-Luc stopped for a moment and Q was too afraid of what he might find if he really went digging in the man's inner thoughts. Then Jean-Luc sat up, shook his head, and the thought he was thinking was so clear Q couldn't help hearing it. _No, damnit! I'm going to be selfish and self-indulgent tonight. The worries can wait until tomorrow._ With that, he smiled that wicked little smile Q was coming to adore and turned back to his terminal. In a whirl of excitement to great to contain, Q fled the Enterprise, not caring that for a whole 10 seconds everyone on the ship felt a sudden rush of euphoria and went about the rest of their day with far better moods than most of them had started out with. 

Traveling out of the entire galaxy at a speed slow enough to comprehend the passing of everything around him took a little while, even for a Q, and so the entity went out and back in that fashion before returning to the Enterprise at exactly the same moment at which he had first arrived the night before. Picard was again sitting on the couch in his quarters, sipping Earl Grey, though without the book this time. Q watched him just a moment, admiring the loose, casual black pants and dark green shirt he'd opted to wear (and wondering with a little snicker of pride how long it might have taken the captain to settle on the outfit), then flashed into the room. 

"Bonjour, Mon Capitaine." 

Picard simply leaned back and smiled at him, giving Q a quiet little shiver of anticipation with the look in his eyes. 

"So," that voice said carefully, as though he were reviewing a Starfleet policy for the sake of a young ensign, "for tonight I get to do to you whatever I like, isn't that right?" 

The shiver was rather more pronounced now. "That's right, Jean-Luc." 

Picard seemed to consider something, drawing a hand over his chin and then setting his tea down with his other hand. Q firmly fought the impulse to jump on him. This was Picard's show. If only he would hurry up... 

"You see, I have a small problem..." the captain began. 

Q felt cold dread pound into his stomach. It was something of a new sensation, but he didn't like it. 

"...I can make love with a human," he continued. "I can even make love _to_ a human. But I don't think I can make love to anyone if I'm worried the whole time they're going to flash out or zip us off to Venus." 

Q nodded and snapped his fingers. He'd actually been expecting this. Two boxes appeared on the table by Picard's couch. The captain frowned at them, then looked at Q for explanation. 

"The small gold box holds my powers. In the morning, please, give them back to me." 

Picard looked quite surprised. "You can give them up just like that?" 

"Well..." Q shifted on his feet. "I'm still Q, still immortal and still, well, _me._ " Q wondered how to explain. 

But Picard chuckled. "I think I understand. Good. Very good, in fact. If you suddenly developed back pain I don't think I'd like calling in Dr. Crusher again." 

Q relaxed and smiled. He _did_ understand. 

"And the large wooden box?" 

Q shrugged, eyes twinkling. "A selection of my powers, sort of...limited copies, for tonight only. For you, if you want them." 

"What are they?" To Q's relief, Picard was looking at the box with curiosity rather than revulsion or indignation. 

"Whatever you like. Just figure out what you want and open the box. Think of them as advanced holodeck controls." 

"Hm, making love in the holodeck has always struck me as more Riker's style than mine," Picard said with an open smile that was making Q's knees go weak. "But I think I'll find it useful. Thank you, Q." 

"You're more than welcome, Mon Capitaine." 

"Now take off your clothes." 

It took three nano-seconds for Q to realize what he'd said. 

"Yes, sir!" Q responded crisply, saluting with an outrageous flourish and then stripping off his uniform and underclothes until he stood naked beside the small pile of Starfleet fashion. His pose suffered a bit, however, as Picard simply regarded him from the sofa. He had been on the verge of an erection since coming into the room -- since before then, even -- and now under that calm but concentrated gaze he was getting semi-erect. When the hazel eyes focused on Q's penis, he grew even harder. 

"Walk over here," the man said, sitting up on the couch and placing his hands on his knees while his gaze remained steady. 

_I've got to calm down,_ Q told himself as he stepped over to Picard, feeling his own erection sway with his movements, feeling the dry air on his skin, feeling the carpet under his feet. _I'm never going to make it through this if I don't calm down._

"Closer," Picard said softly when Q stopped two feet before him. "Closer," he urged, until the tip of Q's jutting cock, now grown quite hard, flushed deep red and moving slightly with the pulse of his heart, was only a couple inches away from the man's face. "There's what I wanted to see properly last night," he said, and his breath caressed that sensitive flesh and made Q tremble. "Made for me, didn't you say?" 

"Yes," Q moaned, watching with wide eyes as Picard's hands came up and brushed his hips, then his thighs on the outside, then the inside. Finally, they moved to his penis, and Q groaned and swayed. 

"Put your hands on my shoulders, if you like," Jean-Luc said softly before leaning in and placing a gentle kiss on the tip. 

Groaning louder, Q did just that. Suddenly, he remembered that he had never gotten around to doing this properly to Jean-Luc last night, never felt the captain's cum wash down his throat, and shuddered through a rush of heat as his eyes shut tight. A warm, rough-soft tongue licked his tip, and a warmer voice told him, "You taste delicious, do you know that, Q?" 

Q was about to respond when the tongue returned to lick the length of him from balls to tip, and then the mouth -- soft, smooth and rough again in texture, and so very very warm -- moved over his cock completely. Q forced his eyes open and actually saw Picard's head moving between his own legs and fought through a rush of near-orgasm. 

_Got to calm down. Got to calm down,_ Q chanted in his head. But a second thought overrode the first: _I'm fucking his mouth! I'm fucking_ Jean-Luc's _mouth!_

And he came, hot and hard and without warning, rudely and without finesse, shuddering so hard he almost fell despite Picard's strong shoulders under his hands. Picard stayed with him and swallowed and Q came again in a strong aftershock just from realizing that. 

Done, he slumped, and Picard's hands helped him achieve an ungainly sprawl beside his lover on the couch. 

"I'm sorry," Q was gasping. "I'm so sorry, Jean-Luc." 

"Rule number one for tonight, Q," Picard said, and his amused voice drew Q's startled eyes to his face. "You are never to be sorry for coming." Picard looked at him quizzically. "What is it?" 

Q's words came out half-strangled. "You've got...some of my cum on your chin." 

Picard smiled and leaned forward, and when he spoke Q could smell himself on the man's breath. "Want to wipe it off for me?" 

Trembling again and growing hard in seconds, Q reached out his tongue and licked the thick substance off his lover's face and then simply waited for whatever the man wanted next. 

Picard seemed pleased. "Now," he said with interest, "let's see what's in this box of yours." 

Q automatically tried to reach out and see what Picard had in mind, and then realized that he couldn't. Suddenly the enormity of what he'd asked Jean-Luc to do last night and what he was doing for Jean-Luc tonight washed over him. He shivered, this time from more than mere nervousness. If I asked and he knew I was serious, he told himself, _he'd give me that box. I just know he would._ But still it was hard to sit here on the sofa and wait for Jean-Luc to decide what to do with the "magic box." 

Picard picked up the box and opened it. Suddenly he and Q were in a comfortable wood paneled bedroom, Q in an armchair near the big bed and Picard standing near a dresser. The captain grinned at the entity. "I think I like this box of yours." 

Q felt a rush of relief at both the grin and the fact that the gold box was sitting on the dresser. Picard looked at him shrewdly. "Not easy, is it?" he asked. 

Compelled to honesty, Q replied, "No, not really." He couldn't resist adding, "You better make this worth my while." Picard raised an eyebrow and Q added, "Sir." 

"No," Picard said quietly. He came over and put the magic box on the bedside table. "Please, don't do that. I get called 'Sir' all day, and frankly, I get tired of it." He paused, and then crouched down so that their faces were level. "And, when I play, I don't play that way." 

"Good," Q said softly. 

"That's what you're saying now," Picard teased. He reached out and cupped Q's chin with one hand, tracing the entity's mouth with his thumb. "I seem to recall saying something about your mouth last night. I was right; it is gorgeous." He drew closer and pulled Q's chin gently until they were practically nose-to-nose. They stared into one another's eyes for a heartbeat, and then Picard leaned in closer and began kissing Q. 

Q was astonished at the surge he felt through his whole body as Picard's tongue teased his mouth open. Unlike last night, Jean-Luc's kiss was demanding and thorough, his tongue exploring Q's mouth as if he had all night to do this. Q could feel his human pulse hammering throughout his whole body, and he heard himself whimper into Picard's mouth. The kiss didn't stop, but Picard's hand left Q's cheek and traveled around lightly to trace an ear before it worked its way into Q's hair. At the feel of those fingers combing through his hair, Q trembled more. Who would have thought that his scalp would be sensitive to this man's touch? 

Finally, Picard pulled back, breaking the kiss. Q knew that he was looking at Jean-Luc with wide eyes, waiting for whatever was going to happen next. Picard moved, but only to kneel more comfortably at the foot of the chair. Q watched as the captain reached out and took Q's hands in a light grasp. He was stunned at the feeling as Jean-Luc dropped a light kiss in the center of each palm. It was almost as if there were a wire traveling from his palms to his aching erection. There was, of course; he'd seen all those connections last night as he'd played Jean-Luc's nervous system. The knowledge didn't stop a gasp from escaping his lips as Picard's tongue flicked out and began tracing patterns all over Q's hand. 

"Ohhh..." 

Picard chuckled as his tongue moved up and his teeth nipped lightly at Q's wrist. "Like that?" he asked, his breath warm against the pulse point. 

"Yes..." Q moaned, glad he was sitting down. He felt shaky and wondered how Jean-Luc had been able to deal with so many hours of this last night. 

"Good," Picard breathed, before he went back to Q's wrist. Alternating lips, tongue and teeth, he traveled his slow way up Q's arm, pausing to pay a lot of attention to the sensitive hollow inside the elbow. Q was gasping by the time Picard reached his shoulder. His gasps were abruptly buried in another hard kiss, before Picard bent over his other hand. By the time Picard had finished with that arm, Q was whimpering, little pleading moans that would have been embarrassing if he hadn't been too lost in his own need. 

"I've spent the whole day thinking about how you feel," Picard murmured, his breath warm now against Q's chest as his lips teased the sensitized skin. It took everything Q had to sit still and listen and wait for whatever was coming next. "I even started to think that I had imagined how wonderful you were, your skin, your warmth against me. But if anything it's only better than I remember." 

"Please," Q moaned, arching his back a little to bring his right nipple closer to Jean-Luc's mouth, straining with the desire to have his erection touched, weak with the desire to come. "Hurry..." 

Picard chuckled, but Q could hear that it was more rueful than humorous. "This really is difficult for you, isn't it, Q?" 

Somehow, the thought of being unattractive to Picard suddenly struck Q as the worst possible fate: unattractive in any way, by any action or lack of ability. Suddenly more than anything in his existence Q regretted giving up his powers. This body represented him in more ways than he could ever explain, but without the power of the Q what was he but infirm flesh and blood and a quivering lack of self-control? 

"I'm sorry..." Q gasped out as Picard's left hand rose up and twirled a pattern around Q's nipples. "So sorry..." 

"Shhhh, shhhh." Picard shook his head and with his right hand gently turned Q's face towards his own. "Rule number two: no being sorry for feeling good. Have you forgotten the purpose of this night? It's not that you're supposed to prove yourself to me. It's so that I can give you pleasure. You know, you really _know_ how important it is for me to see you feel joy from my touches, don't you?" 

Q nodded. 

"And do you think you're giving me any cause for complaint? Q..." Picard shook his head and then leaned in a gently sucked on Q's left nipple. The entity hissed and arched and almost came. The man kept up the pressure for some time before moving in a slow nibbling trail over to his other nipple and sucking again, this time a little harder. 

"Oh, Jean-Luc!" 

"Don't you see how superb you are?" Picard asked while his fingers worked over Q's chest and his tongue darted out between his words to lick little patterns on that warm skin. "If I'm a sex kitten, you're a volcano, ready to erupt everytime I touch you. You're having to use everything you have not to come, aren't you?" 

"Yes," Q whimpered, the admission difficult even while his cock was leaking and his breaths deep and uneven. 

"Hmmmm," Picard said, leaving the entity puzzled as he leaned back on his heels and looked Q over with narrowed eyes. Abruptly, he rose up and walked to the wooden box, opening the lid and then returning with something small which nonetheless glowed with enough power to assure Q that whatever Picard had wanted required Q powers not only to create but to sustain. Then Picard opened his hand and Q gasped at what he saw. 

Efficiently, Picard fastened the cock ring at the base of Q's erection, and immediately Q could feel its effect. He wanted to come as much as ever, but the strain of holding back had been taken over in large part by the ring. That snug pressure, almost painful, powerfully erotic, held him back, and while he still gasped with the need to climax, he could relax. 

"Ohhhh, Jean-Luc, thank you." 

"Certainly, Q," Picard's amused voice said as the man knelt before him and glittered his warm honey gaze as though he were declaring a thousand unspoken promises. "Anything else you'd like while I'm at it?" 

"You could take off your clothes," Q heard himself say, feeling suddenly in the mood to pout. With his powers in the gold box, he couldn't call up a perfect image of Picard's chiseled form, and the man's loose green and black clothing hid much more than it even suggested. 

"I'm going to fuck you, Q, do you know that?" 

Q closed his eyes on the hot wave that ran through him. 

The way Jean-Luc had spoken, calmly, as if he were answering Q's request instead of utterly ignoring it, was devastating. "I certainly hope so," Q managed to say, aware that his voice wavered a bit. Picard smiled again and sat down, taking Q's left foot and putting it in his lap. 

"But not for a while yet," the captain said, as he bent his head to begin kissing and licking and nipping his way up Q's calf. Q quivered and sighed and moaned as Picard seemingly explored each centimeter of skin on both his legs. By the time the man reached Q's high inner thighs, the entity knew that he'd have come half a dozen times if not for the cock ring. When Jean-Luc's lips began moving over the extremely sensitive skin there, Q unthinkingly pulled his legs up and rested them on the seat of the arm chair. 

He was rewarded with a chuckle and the touch of fingertips roaming carefully over the newly exposed skin. Picard's touch was light enough to be extremely maddening, and when those determined fingers moved to tease Q's testicles, Q cried out in sheer frustration. "Oh...please..." The only result was that Picard bent and let his tongue lightly follow the pattern traced by his fingers. Then that tongue was once more licking its way up Q's cock, with one long hard stroke, and then Jean-Luc was standing up. Q blinked up at him for a moment and noticed that there was a considerable bulge in front of those loose pants. Picard saw him noticing and shook his head, tsking faintly. 

"Come on," the captain said, taking Q's hand and tugging gently. Q rose and allowed himself to be led to the bed, sinking gratefully back onto his back as Jean-Luc's hands positioned him. He looked up and blinked and looked back at Jean-Luc in wonder. 

"Where are we? Without my powers..." 

"Kirosina, in the Miosina system." 

"Oh, of course." Q looked up at the breathtakingly huge ringed planet that seemed to hover over the transparent ceiling of the room Jean-Luc had created. He suddenly felt a little hurt. This was someplace Picard had been before. Of course, the captain had been to the Southernmost Island on Pacifica, but he hadn't been there _with_ anyone. But this place had "love nest" written all over it. "Who was she?" he asked, hoping his voice was casual. 

"Which one?" Picard replied casually. Q tried to conceal the hurt he felt. Was he just one in a long line of conquests for Johnny Picard? "There was the rather repressed, intelligent heroine of 'Sense and Sensibility,' the three lovely women whose last names were all a variant of Smith from 'The Life Thoughts and Deeds of Hieronymus Jobs,' the various nymphs, sirens, and goddess of 'The Odyssey,' and T'Veth of 'The Firewall.'" He looked at Q, the hurt Q had felt now faintly echoed on his face. "Q, this is where I came after Milikin III. The ambassador lent me his winter cabin for a couple of weeks while I recovered from my injuries." He frowned. "You don't think I'd bring you someplace...When I was here, I kept wishing that I had someone to be here with me, someone who would appreciate the view, someone who...meant something." He looked away, and then looked back, his eyes meeting Q's almost as if he were daring the entity to make something of what he'd just said. Q couldn't; he was feeling like an idiot for his own insecurity. 

"You have to let me apologize for that," Q said. "I'm sorry, it's not having my powers that makes me so..." He didn't finish the sentence; he didn't have to, Jean-Luc was nodding in complete understanding. 

"Apology accepted," the baritone voice rumbled as the captain leaned over Q. "But we should really kiss and make up, don't you think?" 

"I'm hoping that I _won't_ be thinking soon," Q replied just before he surrendered his mouth to Jean-Luc's demanding lips. The fires that his insecurity had banked came alive, brighter and hotter than ever, and he was suddenly again aware of the tightness of the cock ring around the base of his erection. Picard left his mouth and began teasing his neck, causing Q to groan loudly as the man's mouth repeatedly found sensitive spots. Jean-Luc bit lightly at one particularly sensitive point, and Q cried out in surprise. 

"Ah ha," the man mumbled against Q's neck and then nibbled at the same spot. When Q again cried out and thrashed, Jean-Luc bit down and suddenly was sucking on the soft skin of Q's neck. Q whimpered and his hands clawed at the sheets as he fought to keep still so that Jean-Luc wouldn't stop. Dimly he was aware of the hoarse cries that were coming out of his mouth, but mostly he was lost in the sensation, wondering how Jean-Luc had managed to find a nerve that turned his whole body into one big erogenous zone. 

Q's body arched and collapsed several times, his erection throbbing so hard that his entire being seemed to be held in at the base of his cock. Of their own volition his hands left the bed and grabbed Picard's arms. The material against his skin seemed like the cruelest mockery possible. 

"Please, Jean-Luc!" Q howled. " _Please_ take off you clothes! I've got to feel your skin against me." 

"Let go of me, Q, and I will," Picard said quietly, though Q could hear a ragged edge to his voice that comforted him deeply, comforted him enough to release his grip and watch as, with one smooth movement, the man pulled off his shirt to reveal the warm, pale skin of his body. 

Q sobbed, and would have been astonished at it if he hadn't felt like the universe was twirling around his head while his nerves burned sweet fire. Picard frowned at him a little, then toed off his shoes and slid off his black pants. He wasn't wearing anything else. Q's eyes went to his erection (Q's legs spread a little), to the muscles of his legs (Q's breath caught), to the high pectorals of his chest (Q's fingers itched to touch his nipples), to his straight shoulders (Q longed to kiss them), to his narrow waist (Q's arms twitched as he thought about embracing him), and once again only kept himself from coming with the aid of the restrictive leather around his penis. 

"You're so beautiful," Q groaned. "I'm going to explode just looking at you." 

Picard smiled, and the tenderness of it drew another sob out of Q. "If I'd been any good at painting," he said, the smile filling his voice with color and light, "I'd paint you like this. I've never seen anything as erotic as you when you're aroused." Picard chuckled suddenly, his hands going to Q's inner thighs as he settled himself between those long spread legs. "Of course, as soon as anyone saw my painting they'd turn me over to Starfleet Command as a sex fiend and I'd quietly be given a desk job and pressured to retire." Lightly his fingernails trailed long patterns up almost to Q's groin, then down almost to his knees, then up again. 

"Oh, Jean-Luc," Q said in the desperate, growling, frustrated sing-song of an entity pushed right past his limits, "won't you just hurry up and fuck me right this minute don't you understand I can't take lying here and waiting please fuck me please please fuck me I've got to come soon or I'm going to -- " 

Q's demands were lost in a strangled gurgle as Picard abruptly rose on his knees and put his hands on his own chest, lightly raking down all the way to his stomach, then returning to rub his own nipples with his thumbs and fingertips. Q cried out and shuddered, and in response Picard's hands dropped to his own straining erection and stroked only a few times. Then the man groaned, his hips thrust forward, and along with the energy of his climax his cum spurted out with wild force to pelt Q's torso with heavy heat all over and all at once. Q's shocked stillness lasted as long as it took Picard to whip off his cock ring, and then the entity was coming and coming, howling and thrashing while a warmth he later realized was Jean-Luc's hand stroked him and drew out more howls and heated waves of pleasure. For several incredible moments Q's only thoughts were colored sensation and the realization that Jean-Luc I'm-So-Repressed-I-Can-Barely-Smile-When-I-Save-the-World Picard had just splashed him as though Q were his own to come all over whenever he liked. 

And, dimly, Q also knew this was true, and -- as the admission sank in -- came all over again. 

He had barely come down from his climax when he felt Picard's large strong hands turning him over onto his stomach. There was a moment when he could tell that Jean-Luc was reaching into the magic box and then he was suddenly clean and dry, the sheets soft against his chest. Then Jean-Luc's hands were spreading him open and instead of going with it, Q scrambled up until he was on his knees and elbows. He wasn't aware of anything except an aching emptiness and he wanted Jean-Luc to be inside him more than he'd wanted anything. Except, his mind reminded him, for the way he'd wanted to pour all of himself into Jean-Luc last night. He struggled not to reveal that need, although it was hard not to. If only Jean-Luc would fuck him, if only he could at least have _that_ closeness, if only... 

He let out a groan that started rapidly rising in volume as Jean-Luc began to stroke his ass and back with strong broad movements of his hands. Q felt like an unfinished mound of clay that was being sculpted into a giant sex toy for Captain Jean-Luc Picard. He wondered if that were how Jean-Luc was seeing him, and remembered his own vision of Picard as an instrument to be played. For a moment the vulnerability terrified him, and then something occurred to him. 

Last night, he'd essentially forced Picard to let go of his control, with results that had been incredibly overwhelming for both of them. So tonight it was only fair that Jean-Luc return the favor, but there was more than that going on. He remembered how he himself had felt out of control last night, swept up in Jean-Luc's passion and need. As his whole body now trembled in response to Picard's increasingly insistent touch, he realized that Jean-Luc must be caught up in this too. It was a very comforting realization, particularly as those hands returned again and again to Q's ass and hips and Q moved to get more of that strong touch. 

"Mmmm," Jean-Luc murmured, "I love the way you look right now. You're hard again, aren't you?" 

"Aching..." Q gasped. 

"Really? Let's see." Picard's hand slipped between Q's legs and the entity let out a low scream as it closed around his cock. The massive orgasms he'd just had were a distant memory now and he began to thrust against Jean-Luc's hand. 

"Please...I'm so...I need..." 

"I know you do. And I know what it's like." The hand left Q's erection and the entity whimpered in painful frustration. Jean-Luc kept speaking softly and Q trembled, hanging on every word. "Your cock, it hurts, doesn't it? It's so hard, and everything's so tight that you feel like there's a spring inside you that's wound to the breaking point." Q shivered as that deep voice caressed his skin the way the hands had caressed him earlier. Jean-Luc was refining the work now, shaping Q, molding him until he was nothing but what Jean-Luc wanted him to be. Q should have been terrified, except that he'd never been wanted this much, never had anyone try to wrench every last sensation out of him. He'd never felt this valuable, this... 

"You don't care, do you?" That voice grabbed Q's attention again. "Just like I didn't care last night. You're on your knees with your ass in the air and all you feel is the need to be fucked, no shame, no pride, nothing but that ache...that emptiness. You'd do anything for it right now, wouldn't you?" 

"Yes...oh please please please, Jean-Luc! You have to..." 

"Do you have any idea how you sound? If lust had a voice, it would be your voice; if desire had a sound it would be those whimpers and groans and moans you're making. If need had a form, Q, it would be you, trembling and aching and spread out." Q felt lost for a moment, suddenly sure Jean-Luc was mocking him, was going to tease him for needing and wanting this. But then the voice spoke again. "And if frustration had a form," and his fingers, slick and hot with lubrication, were abruptly sliding into Q, "it would probably be my cock. Oh God, Q, I've thought about this all day. Thought about giving you what you gave me last night. Thought about fucking you until you screamed as loudly as I did, until you felt what I felt." 

"Yes!" Q yelled out. "Do it now! Please, Jean-Luc...please?" The fingers were still gently stretching him and Q tried to shove back against them. It wasn't enough, nothing but Jean-Luc's cock would be enough. "Stop that...I don't care...if it hurts..." 

"Too bad," Picard replied and Q could hear the strain in his voice as he tried to sound controlled. "I do. I want you ready, all of you. I want you incoherent with readiness, and I want you to think about nothing but the pleasure of me filling you up. No pain, no fear, no worries, just me inside you, making you come as many times as your omnipotent body can handle." He paused and suddenly thrust three fingers inside, causing Q to scream raggedly. Not in pain, but because he was once more on the edge of the knife. Absurdly, Q thought of Jean-Luc calling him a volcano. That was exactly what he was, aching with the hot, heavy pressure that was building up to dangerous levels inside himself. 

He thrust again and again against Jean-Luc's fingers, shamelessly fucking himself, and crying because it wasn't enough. Then he was empty again, and his mouth opened to beg although he wasn't sure he knew how to talk any more. 

And then something incredibly soft and warm lightly touched his anus. Q froze, not tense but not moving a muscle, not breathing, afraid and elated, uncertain but soaring. The softness pressed a little harder, and there was pressure and the feeling of being stretched, but no pain, nothing like pain. Heat, being filled, being caressed ever so slowly as Jean-Luc went inside him: that was all there was. That was all Q was. 

"Oh, God," the captain's voice whispered near his shoulder. "You feel so good. I can't believe it." 

Q groaned and began to move, just barely, breathing and arching his hips. Picard wasn't all the way in yet. There would be more of this inside him. If he were patient, he might be filled completely. 

_Dangerous thoughts,_ a voice taunted, but Q drowned out the warning easily with a roar of pleasure. The last of the man's penis was filling him, and Q could feel that warm sac against his ass as Picard folded over him and kissed a little row of kisses on his back. Q realized that when Picard came, his cum would shoot deeply inside him, and the energy of his lover he needed so much would come with it. He would not have to turn into the stream; he need only hold still and the waterfall of Picard's ecstasy would pour over and through him. 

"Perfect," Q said aloud, unable at that moment to imagine anything better. "This is perfect." 

"You made this for me too, didn't you?" Picard murmured as he moved his hips slightly and Q felt the soft, firm pressure rub over his little gland as a jolt of sensation shot to his penis. 

"Ugh! Jean-Luc! Where's the...I can't...I don't want to come without you." 

"Hm," Picard said, and Q felt the man's right hand move from his hip, lightly trail a path around his body and then firmly grasp him at the base of his heavy and aching erection. "I've got you," Q's lover whispered. "I've got you and I'm not going to let you go." 

Q whimpered slightly, uncaring how he sounded as he felt Picard shift his weight and get into the right position, then his cock began to move, slowly, in and out, while his right hand kept its firm embrace. Between the movements of Jean-Luc's cock going slowly, deeply in and out of his body, and that carefully maintained hand, Q felt he existed in wave after wave of burning bliss, stimulating and fulfilling him, gratifying him and yet making him want more and more. 

"Is this how you felt last night?" Q asked. "Did I make you feel this good?" 

"Do you feel as though you're about to come like a warp core breach with more pleasure than should be legal but still don't want to come because you never want it to end?" 

Q chuckled. "Something like that." He shuddered. The heat was rising and soon the urgency would be too much and he'd scream for more, harder. He'd beg to be driven out of his mind. "Oh, thank you for this, Jean-Luc. You don't know how long I've wanted to feel something like this." 

"No," Picard replied seriously. "But I do know how long _I've_ been waiting. Now get ready, Q. You're about to be wildly fucked by a sex-crazed starship captain who doesn't feel like waiting anymore." 

Q groaned and spread his knees a little wider and arched his hips a bit more and then didn't have the opportunity to choose anything else for quite a while. That luscious cock filling him began pumping him furiously, roughly, deeply, perfectly angled and relentless in its pounding pleasure. Instinctively, Q began to fight that pleasure with various weapons: disbelief, fear, impatience. Every last resistance was exploded with passion, and finally he was nothing but a constellation of shining nerves getting fueled and flaring, pulsing and trying so hard to come. But coming was impossible. Picard's strong hand held him in a death grip while his strong cock rode him and rode him. Q realized he didn't have to fight this, didn't have to deny himself anything, and allowed relief and need and joy to wash over him. Picard wanted him, and Picard was taking. All Q had to do was allow himself to be taken. He trusted Jean-Luc to let him come when he should. He trusted the man to plunder him without harm, to see him through this. 

And then for Q there was only light and heat, sweet sounds and smells, joy and hope. Behind his closed eyes he was floating over a hot sea, held aloft by eddies in the rising waves of energy that was himself getting fucked by Jean-Luc Picard. 

And then the pressure inside his ass changed, a deep thrust held before release, a break in that perfect rhythm. A loud groan, then another, filled his ears, and the restriction around his cock disappeared. Q's eyes flew open and saw the room, and its solid existence seemed ephemeral as a cloud in that split-second before Picard thrust one last time and came, blasting Q with the narcotic of his energy right through the heart of Q's being while the man's cum exploded deep in his body in a wave of heat that reached to his fingers and toes. Q was coming as well, screaming in sweet sweet bliss that wrapped around Picard's continuing ecstasy and crashed back into them both. Together, still united, they flailed arms and legs, bucking and shouting, Q hanging on to the sheets and Picard hanging on to Q. 

And then both of them simply blacked out, and even the oblivion was good. 

  
When Q slowly moved back into consciousness, he was being held close by two strong arms. They were somewhere else, he noticed groggily, but he couldn't tell where, as most of his attention focused on the feeling of closeness and safety he felt in Jean-Luc's arms. He felt oddly small, and quite content to lie here, listening to and feeling Picard's steady, even breathing. While he'd been nervous, he'd anticipated pleasure from this night. What he'd gotten was so far beyond his expectations that he wasn't quite sure what to think. He wanted more, more of that spiraling energy that washed over him every time Jean-Luc came. He wanted the wild passion of his own climax and the way it overtook him until he was no longer Q nor human but some creature born of ecstasy that was far greater than both. He wanted to turn Jean-Luc into the same creature, and watch in delight as his lover felt things he'd never felt before and surrendered to feelings no one had ever evoked in him before. He even wanted more of this sleepy languor, and the incredible feeling of belonging that he felt now, even as the thought of Jean-Luc's nearness sparked a flicker of arousal. He leaned back into Jean-Luc's embrace, and felt more than heard the soft sigh of contentment from his lover. _My lover,_ Q thought sleepily. _Mine and I'm his and we're together the way we're supposed to be._ He pillowed his head on one of the man's arms, and was gathered closer before Jean-Luc drifted off again. As Q prepared to drop into the amazing feeling that was sleeping with his lover, he thought one more drowsy thought. _My partner, my mate._

And with that thought, Q panicked. 

He instinctively tried to fling himself somewhere very far from this trap. Nothing happened and he was really panicking now, thrashing in Picard's arms and yelling as Jean-Luc was suddenly very awake and looking very much the Starship Captain, his eyes flickering around the room as he checked out its defensive possibilities. 

"Q!" Strong hands caught Q's flailing arms and tried to calm him. It was a mistake; Q wrenched out of that surprisingly strong grip and looked around frantically. 

"Where is it?!" he demanded. His stupid human heart was pounding in his chest, his feet felt like blocks of ice, and he was terrified. He turned to look at Picard and couldn't even meet the captain's eyes. Had he really been on his knees with his ass in the air begging this man to fuck him? How could he, a _Q,_ have made himself so vulnerable, let Picard, of all beings in this universe, reduce him to that? "Give it to me! _Now_ Picard!" 

He wanted Picard to show fear, wanted more than anything to feel stronger and _better_ than this man. If Picard would only be afraid of him, Q would no longer feel his own aching fear as it pounded at his temples and forced his breath out in shaky gasps. Of course, Q would settle for contempt. Picard had felt contempt for him before (and Q ignored the quiet voice of reason that insisted that that was a long time ago now and the captain had been correct in his feelings) and now if he did it, Q would be strong enough to make him pay for it (and, oh, could he make Picard pay; he could reduce the captain to a begging sex toy on the bridge of his pathetic ship in front of his surrogate family). Contempt or fear would do, they would be a sign that Q's current instinct was right and that he should in no way feel the way he'd felt mere moments ago. Even stupidity would do. If Picard asked him what he was talking about, Q was prepared to flay the man alive with words that revealed how much he knew of Picard's private fears and vanities. 

Suddenly the gold box was in Picard's hands. Q went to grab for it, but Picard said, "No!" in a voice of command that broke through a little corner of Q's mindless panic. "You _have_ to look me in the eye first. If you do that, I'll give it to you and that will be the end of it." 

That flat voice warned Q, that unnaturally calm way of speaking that was Picard talking to the bench at either of his court-marshalls or the boards of inquiry that followed his every encounter with the Borg, and the entity expected to see the stone face that made up the Captain's Mask. But when Q raised his terrified eyes to look at Picard he was stunned at what he found there. 

Infinite sadness was etched across every line of those chiseled features, and the hazel eyes were filled with tears. There was no mask here, but a sense of weary desperation, the look of a man who has seen his worse nightmare come to life in the cold light of morning. Q had seen this look before, when Jack Crusher died and shortly thereafter, when Picard gave the order to abandon the Stargazer to her fate. Jean-Luc was trying to be understanding, Q realized, and, worst of all, he was trying to hide the self-blame that trembled at the corner of his mouth and threatened to break free. 

Q's anxiety attack melted and gave way to a more severe pain in his chest. The thought of Q leaving was doing _this_ to Picard? Was reducing the iron-willed captain to tears? Picard was holding out the box with shaking hands, and as Q automatically reached for it, the captain set his jaw and tried to be strong in front of the capricious being who had plagued him for almost ten years. Q recognized that look, he'd seen it once at Farpoint and never since then. This was Jean-Luc Picard facing death as bravely as only he could, able to hide the fear although he couldn't hide the hurt. 

Q felt like a monster. He felt like a barbarian who had destroyed a library that held the knowledge of the universe simply because he couldn't read any of the volumes. He felt like he'd taken a scrap of food from a starving Bajoran child, or kicked an old lady's beloved cat. The gold box looked tacky and flimsy and it fell from Q's nerveless fingers as the entity felt his eyes grow swollen and hot. He tried to choke back the sob that rose in his throat and would have managed if the expressive face he was staring at hadn't shown just the barest flicker of sympathy. Taking what he felt was one of the greatest chances of his life, Q began to sob as he flung himself at Picard, hoping against all reasonable hope that Picard would give comfort where none was deserved. 

Instantly those strong arms caught him and held him close, and Q was more ashamed than he'd been when he'd worried more about himself than Data, than when the Continuuum had thrown him out, than...ever. "I'm so sorry," Q gasped out between wracking sobs, his eyes shut tight as though he could hide from himself. "I didn't mean it." 

"Shhhh," Picard hushed, holding him close and stroking his hair. "Explain when you're calmer. I'm not going anywhere." 

And that only made Q cry harder for a time. Finally, his knee hit something cold and solid and in surprise he opened his eyes and pulled back. The gold box lay there, and Q, rubbing away tears with the back of his right hand, gingerly picked up the box in his left and handed it back to Picard. "Please, could you put this back wherever you had it?" 

"Are you sure?" the captain asked, making no move to take it. 

"Yes. Please." 

Jean-Luc took the box and set it on the nightstand, and it ocurred to Q that his lover had put it there originally so that he could see it when he awoke and feel reasured. His self-hatred flared and, as though in self-protection, he thought of how he had been on the bed not long ago, begging and needing to be restrained with a cock ring, completely vulnerable while Picard did nothing but pleasure him before he had masturbated over him. Q ached at the memory, and forced himself not to swoop down to the man's cock and drive them both away from this moment. Picard would never agree to be his mate, would never allow Q to get as close to him as Q wanted to be, but he had agreed to more than Q had ever thought he would. The last several hours of Q's life had been among the best of his whole timeless existence. He wasn't going to shirk or shrug this off. 

Q sighed, looking into Picard's pensive eyes and forbidding himself even the smallest deception. 

"It was just too much," he began. "I was lying there, thinking of how much this means to me, and it was too much. I'm...I'm used to being rather invulnerable, Jean-Luc, and suddenly I knew I wasn't. I'm used to getting whatever I like, and suddenly I knew I wouldn't get what I wanted. I needed to be strong and powerful again. I needed to be Q again, so you couldn't...hurt me." 

Q waited for Picard to say either that he was a frightened child who wasn't worth his time, or that he would never hurt him, and Q was an idiot for thinking he would. 

Instead, Picard's eyes, already less than dry, misted further, while he said simply, "The Borg." 

"What?" 

"I'd never let anyone inside before, not really. I always told myself I couldn't. Beverly, Kamala, Jenice -- it didn't matter. And then the Borg just took everything I'd kept from others, and I couldn't keep them out." 

"I'm s --" 

"Shhh!" Picard looked almost annoyed. "I'm not blaming you for anything. The Borg are, at the least, responsible for their own actions. No, the problem is with what I came away from that with: the feeling that I'd been right all my life. The feeling that letting someone inside myself meant they would control me, the feeling that if I weren't strong enough to be inviolate, I would be destroyed." 

Q waited for the rest, then realized what Picard was doing. He wasn't blaming Q for what had happened to him, he was trying to say that he understand Q's panic. The mere thought compelled him to explain further: 

"The Q don't _need,_ Jean-Luc. What we want we have, the second we want it. I think it took me so many years -- and your overt come-on -- to realize what I wanted from you because the whole concept of wanting like that is just so completely beyond the Q's existence." 

Picard nodded, and Q thought it possible he really did understand. But then Picard said something to make Q realize he understood a little too well: "What was it, then, that you wanted and believed you couldn't have?" 

Q's defenses dropped into place with a clang. "More sex." 

Picard frowned. "Somehow I don't think..." 

"Please, Jean-Luc," Q said, his voice calculated to be as sensual as he could manage. "We've wasted enough time on my histronics and our talking, don't you think?" 

Picard astonished Q by shrugging. "Certainly, Q. Lie back down on the bed." 

Q eagerly complied, thrilled it would be so easy. Picard reached immediately for his penis, and the entity grew hard with that touch, closing his eyes as warmth and pleasure washed through his tension and eased it partially away. "Like this, Q?" Picard was stroking him now. 

"Yes." 

"I was thinking of laying on top of you and rubbing my whole body over yours." Q groaned. "Would you like that?" 

"Yes, oh, yes. Please." 

Q could feel Picard opening the wooden box, and suddenly the entity found his hands and feet spread out and pinned firmly to the bed. He groaned and shuddered and began thinking of nothing but the warm touch over his cock. "Q?" 

"Ugh...yes?" 

"What was it you wanted but thought you couldn't have?" 

"What?!" Q was furious, but the look on Jean-Luc's face made him pause. Jean-Luc looked angry too, and hurt hovered behind those hazel eyes. He shook his head and lifted the lid of the box again and Q was released. "What were you going to do?" Q asked. "Tease me until I answered your question?" 

Picard shrugged tightly and picked up the gold box. "Here," he said, tossing it on the bed next to Q, before he turned away and stared out a glass door. Q suddenly looked around, wondering where he was. It only took a minute before he realized that they were in the villa Jean-Luc's Aunt Adele had left him. Here in this house, although not in this bed, Adele's beautiful business partner had taught a nervous young man how to make love like a Frenchman. Young Jean-Luc had been grateful, but Q wasn't so sure Jacqueline Plaget deserved gratitude. Jacqua had had her standards and she had expected her pupil to live up to them. And he had, so well that the idea of taking pleasure simply for himself had become foreign to him. Picard had been trying to tell Q something by his choice of location, the entity realized. Jean-Luc had figured out why he was the way he was and was bringing his new lover here where his sex life...his love life had started. Crushed by his failure to make it into the Academy, Jean-Luc had come here and fallen into Jacqueline's lap. He had adored her, thought he loved her, and had never said anything. It was supposed to be fun; she'd taught him that and love was not part of the fun. And so why were they here? Did Jean-Luc think that he could re-learn the lesson, change things, teach Q that same lesson..? 

"I'm sorry," that warm baritone said, breaking into Q's thoughts. "I shouldn't be angry with you. Not when you're just doing what I do all the time. What she did to me." 

"Using sex as a shield," Q replied. "Pretending that all there is to this is two bodies, and a sweaty exchange of pleasure." He watched as the back of Jean-Luc's head nodded. He knew the pensive, reflective look that was on Jean-Luc's face. Just as, Q realized, he knew so many of Picard's looks and moods. "Why are you so angry?" 

"Because I thought...I hoped that there would be something..." He turned and Q sat up, ignoring the box of power on the bed. "I knew it was stupid, but when you said...what you said..." His voce trailed off and Q felt his heat hammering again in his chest. "I thought..." 

Q rose swiftly from the bed and came to Jean-Luc's side. He didn't stand behind the man as he had on so many occasions. Instead he chose to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with him. "Why did you bring me here?" 

"Instinct," Picard replied. "I thought, where could I say...things that I was taught not to say? Where would I want to take someone who...meant something?" 

It was the second time that night he had said that and suddenly Q was remembering something that Jean-Luc had said last night. "Please, Jean-Luc," the entity said, aware that he would need Jean-Luc's help and strength to get him through this, to keep him from grabbing up that box and fleeing. "Wait," he said, having a sudden thought about the box. He ran to the bed, moving as quickly as he could, picked it up and came back to Jean-Luc's side. Yanking open the door, he flung the box out as hard as he could. 

"Q!" Picard rushed out onto the balcony and looked over he edge. Looking back at Q in shock, he said, "It fell in the pool." 

"I was hoping for that. We'll go after it later." 

"All right," Picard replied, obviously recognizing the gesture for what it was. He looked around and then gestured to a corner of the balcony. "Here, sit with me?" There was a tentativeness to his voice that Q really didn't like the sound of. Abruptly he wondered if Jean-Luc had instinctively run here because he had done the some thing after his earliest failure. 

"Of course," he replied, and almost laughed at the tentative courtesy in his own voice. They were two people who were no longer enemies, no longer watcher and watched, no longer tolerated nuisance and personal project, and no longer sure of each other or themselves. "Jean-Luc, do you remember last night?" Q began. Before he finished the sentence, he heard the swiftly stifled gasp from the man next to him. The curtain had pulled the balcony door shut and the light was faint; Q could hardly see Picard. 

"Intimately," Jean-Luc replied, his voice breathy. Q smiled in wonder. Even the mention of last night was enough to make Jean-Luc breathless. Realizing that he himself had felt the stirring of an erection at that gasp of Picard's made the entity aware that Jean-Luc wasn't the only one with a good memory. 

"At one point I asked you to stay with me..." Q couldn't finish the sentence. He could bring himself to ask and be rejected. He could only hold his hand out so far, and, not for the first time, he cursed his own past and his culture that had made it so hard to ask for... "Help," he whispered finishing the sentence out loud. "Please, help me through..." 

"Did I mean 'always,' as in 'I'll say whatever you want to hear so you'll make me come?' Or did I mean..." It was Picard's turn to pause, and Q heard the gulp and the slow exhale of a long held breath. "Did I mean 'always' as in ..." the moment hung in the air, both of them so afraid to say anything that neither of them were moving, as if, Q thought, stillness would ensure silence. And then Jean-Luc, with that steadfast courage of his, crossed the final gap. "As in 'I want to be with you always and never leave your side and let you fuck me until we set off supernovae three galaxies away and fuck you until we break the bed, and fall though to the floor below and..?'" He had to stop because his voice had gone ragged. Q thought he was laughing until he realized that what he heard were tears. Tears that were echoed by the tears rolling down Q's own face. 

"...and," Q asked, daring greatly, "love me?" 

"Yes." The reply was soft and shaky, but even Q, with his vast insecurity, could tell how sincere it was. "That was the 'always' I meant. It's the one I'll mean...always." 

"So brave," Q sighed, unaware of the wistful nature of the word. "Life has given you so many things to fear, and you do fear them, but somehow still you're so brave." 

"Are you telling me to fear you, Q?" 

"No. I never want you to fear me. I'm the one who's afraid of me, afraid of what I want." Q stared into the faint light that made outlines and gaps of everything and almost couldn't resist the urge to drop his head into the man's lap for one last taste of Jean-Luc's energy and Jean-Luc's cum. "I'm afraid," he said finally in a voice so quiet part of him hoped Picard wouldn't hear, "of what I want to do with you." 

"Sounds interesting." 

"Don't laugh about it! I almost did it last night, too...I almost..." Q shook his head. No need for that much self-hatred. "No, I didn't really come close, but I wanted to." 

"Wanted to do _what,_ Q?" 

"Wanted to join with you, pour myself in you, be _in_ you." 

"Which would do what to me, exactly?" 

"It would destroy you. Turn you into pure thought. Your consciousness and mine would merge completely and -- please don't be offended -- but you would be overwhelmed and become just a part of me." 

"Permanently?" 

Q shrugged, hiding as best he could how hard it was for him to talk of this. It was something he'd experimented among other Q with billions of years ago, belatedly gaining a healthy respect for keeping one's consciousness to one's self. He couldn't believe he wanted to do it with someone now that he knew what it meant. But more than that, he couldn't believe Picard's humanity didn't protect Q from his own desire. "If you were another Q, if you knew how to extricate yourself, you could, but as you are...you would get lost in me, and what you are would be part of my own ability to know what I was. I doubt I could find all your pieces again. I doubt I could truly make you whole again. And even if I could, even if I erased your memory of it, I have no idea what the experience would do to you. So you see, I'm really something of an asshole for wanting it at all." Q clenched his hands tightly in his lap, feeling his naked skin cold against the air as though he were laid in a draughty crypt. 

He felt Picard start to speak, and came out in a rush: "Jean-Luc, please, don't you see what this night really means? I couldn't hurt you now, no matter how stupid with lust I become. That thing you were doing...restraining me to the bed, touching me, can we go back to that? You don't know what it means to me to feel you come. Tie me up, hold me down, just use me over and over. There's so much time before the dawn still." 

"So I would have to become a Q to give you what you wanted?" 

Q blinked. "No, I don't suppose...but you would have to know a great deal about interacting with a Q telepathically." 

"So I could study for it, prepare for it?" 

"It would take years, Mon Capitaine. And it would be terribly difficult." 

"For me or for you?" 

"For both of us..." Picard's tone had changed, and Q stopped speaking as he tested that new flavor in the darkness. "You're...you're seeing this as some sort of challenge!" 

"Isn't it?" 

Q was outraged and turned to confront Picard's silhouette. "I'm talking about loving you! I'm talking about being in love with you so completely I want to _merge_ with you! Do you know why I panicked earlier? Because I thought of you as my mate! I thought about how much I belonged to you." Something changed in the dark sharp before him and Q realized the man was smiling. 

"I like the sound of that." 

"How -- how dare you!" Q stood up and got ready to dive into that stupid pool. "I tell you I love you and that I can't stand the thought of hurting you and you think it's all some sort of joke! Well, I probably won't be able to stay away from you for long, Mon Capitaine, but I'm going to give it...ughhhh!" 

Picard had placed his warm hand on the inside of Q's thigh. 

"Spending years learning how to get close to you sounds like a lovely way to spend my life, Q...love...my beloved." 

Tears rushed to Q's eyes and his body hummed sweet arousal and somewhere inside him he really heard everything Picard had been saying. Somehow, getting what he wanted hurt, and the pain made the tears well out even as he groaned, "Touch me. We'll talk later about whatever you want, just touch me." 

Picard chuckled and began to trail his touch towards Q's erection. "Getting used to sudden mood swings would seem to be my first lesson in closeness." 

"Secret of the...ohhhhh, you feel so good...Q Number One, Jean-Luc, whatever we're doing...ahhhh...however mad I get, whatever is wrong...yes, oh yes, harder, you're so...I'll never not want to make love with you. Whenever you're tired of hearing me talk, just...oh, oh...throw me to the floor and fuck me." 

"Just like that? Anytime?" 

"Ohhhh...yes...anytime...ahhh yes...not just the floor...good, so good...ohhh..." Q forced himself to get the next bit out without gasping. He even managed and was quite proud of himself for it, a fairly good imitation of Picard's accent: "'Shut up, Q, and bend over.'" 

Picard laughed and Q loved the relaxed, joyful sound of it. It was wonderful to know that he was making Jean-Luc happy, and to know that Jean-Luc loved him, truly loved him was perfection beyond any Q had ever known. "Ohhh..." the entity breathed as Picard's hand stroked and teased and touched until Q, unable to help himself, was babbling incoherently. 

Picard stopped, pulled him to his feet, and led him to the balcony railing. "Shut up, Q," he said, "and bend over." 

_Picard,_ Q thought dimly, _does a better Picard than I do._ He bent over and grabbed onto the railing, backing up and spreading his legs wide. 

"Oh God..." Picard said, his voice soft and thick with lust. "Someday I'll make a mirror bubble and show you how beautiful you look." He sighed and then added, "Stay like that a moment. I promise I'll be right back." 

Q waited, aware of nothing except the heavy ache of his insistent erection. _I'm waiting here,_ he thought, _for my lover to come and fuck me. I'd wait here all night._ A second or two went by, during which his body burned and hummed with desire. _Of course, I'd go insane if I did..._ The thought was cut off by the sound of a step behind him. 

"Do you know what it's like for me to know you're waiting for me, bent over like that? Do you know what it does to me?" 

"Makes you want to fuck me really hard and fast?' Q asked hopefully. 

"Are you sure you're not reading my mind?" Picard teased. Q moaned loudly as he felt warm fingers sliding a generous amount of lubricant inside his ass. "Because if I don't fuck you hard and fast and _very_ soon, I'll go insane." 

"Me too," Q said. 

"Q?" 

Q groaned at the delay. "Yes, Jean-Luc?" 

He felt Picard's hands spreading him open and Picard's cock poised to enter him. "Come as often as you can." A pause. "And, Q?" 

Another longer groan worked its way out of Q's throat. "Yes, Jean-Luc?" 

"Brace yourself." And with that, Picard went in hard and strong and fast. Q screamed, not at the faint pain of it, but at the sheer ecstasy of knowing that he was being thoroughly fucked by the man he loved. Then Jean-Luc was pulling back and thrusting in and Q clung to the balcony railing with white-knuckled strength. The rough, hot pressure of it was wrenching groan after groan out of him and he could feel himself getting closer and closer to his peak. He wanted to wait it out and come with Jean-Luc, but he reminded himself that, although he'd given up his powers for this, he hadn't given up certain advantages. "Q..." Picard gasped out. 

"Yes...ohhhh..." 

"You're such a hot fuck." 

That was all it took; Q yelled out Jean-Luc's name and came, almost passing out at the strength of it. When he came back to himself, he was still clinging to the railing and still groaning as Jean-Luc fucked him. Picard was also laughing a little, a deep if breathless noise. "You really do erupt when you come, do you...know that?" 

"Can't help it," Q gasped. 

"Good." Picard's thrusts increased, and the pleasure in Q's body began to spiral up again. This time Q didn't fight it, and was about to come in a hot rush once more when Picard groaned deeply and paused, pressing his hot face against Q's sweat-slick back. 

"Jean-Luc?" 

"I...I just need a moment." The man's breath moved over Q's skin, warm and then cool. "You just feel so good. Everything is perfect. I used to...stand here...back then, feeling disappointed somehow. Love and sex hadn't been what I thought." Picard began to move slowly now, in and out in long, smooth, gentle strokes that set Q's body on fire and threatened his legs with imminent collapse. "Finding that out about...love and life...learning how to settle for what you can get...is part of growing up." Picard raised his head and increased the strength of his strokes. "But now you're here, and I don't have to settle for anything." 

"I love you," Q whimpered, defenseless against Picard's voice and the feel of his cock inside his body. He was beginning to split open. Control was lost, and he came then, ferociously, all over the low wall, his knuckles locked around the railing, his voice keening in the night air. 

And still Picard was fucking him, and as the pace increased yet again, and Q heard him grunting with each powerful thrust, Q felt he simply was no longer coming down from each climax, but somehow just sustaining that euphoria. It wasn't anything to do with his powers, but his body was begining to feel lumninescent, transcendent, and suddenly he could feel...what? _Something,_ some thought or sensation outside himself. It was incredibly profound, incredibly powerful, incredibly beautiful, and as Q strained for it with only his human nervous system, he was somehow able to touch it. 

And came, even harder than all the times before, dimly aware of Picard's astonished scream and the hot cum shooting deeply inside him. The man's convulsions and shouts went on for long moments of bliss-giving climax, and Q soaked in the sustained energy of his lover's orgasm, coming again as it filled him with light. Together they fell to the hard ground, but Q noticed only that Picard's arms were locked around Q's body, comforting the entity as he felt the man's penis slip out of his body. 

For quite some time they sat there, legs tangled, gasping, trying to understand where they were. 

"What...what happened?" Picard's dazed voice asked. 

Q chuckled and turned, delighting in all his sore muscles, and more properly returned his lover's embrace. "I think we just got our first lesson, Mon Capitaine." 

"That was...I felt...was that you?" 

Q smiled. "I hope so. I'd hate to think you were picking up on somebody else while I was feeling your mind." 

"But, I thought, your powers..." 

"This has nothing to do with powers, my love." Q looked at him in concern. "No wonder you've been worried about letting others inside you." 

Picard blinked at him in astonishment, and then yawned hugely. Q smiled. 

"Excuse me," the captain said, embarrassed. "Perhaps we should get off this floor." 

Q got up, helping Picard to his feet as well, and felt doubt return in a wave. "Jean-Luc, love, please understand. I'll have more control over this when I get my powers back. I don't want you to worry. I can --" 

"Hush, Q," Picard said, turning inside and heading directly for the wooden box. He opened the lid and they were both clean and the covers of the bed were turned back. He turned to Q and smiled, and the entity thought he was going to faint. "I used to lie in this bed and dream of love. Now I want to sleep in it and wake up to find you." 

Q practically ran to the bed. 

A moment later, after Jean-Luc turned out the lights, Q felt the mattress give slightly. A candle flared in the darkness and Q turned to see Jean-Luc looking at him. "Whatever gave me the courage?" the man murmured. 

Q looked at him curiously as the captain pulled the covers up to waist level. "You called me brave earlier, but I think reckless is more like it. How in the world did I stand up and drop my robe in front of you?" 

"Ah, that," Q said. "I'm going to want you to do that again and again. In all sorts of different lighting, just so I can look at your body." 

"Oh please..." 

"No, Jean-Luc," Q said, trying to convey his seriousness. "Listen to me. You look amazing in candlelight, in lantern light, in the too bright light of your old bridge, the too dim light of the new bridge, and even in that hideous blue light in your bedroom." 

"I like the running lights," Picard protested, rolling over onto his back. 

"You're dodging the issue." Q propped himself up on an elbow and looked down at Picard. "You are breathtaking right now. Half of your face is in shadow..." 

"Because my nose is too big..." 

"Jean-Luc Picard!" Q snapped. The entity sat up and frowned fiercely at his lover. "Your nose is perfect. If it weren't the size it is, you'd be all forehead." 

"I _am_ all forehead." 

Q had been expecting that, and now he pounced. "Then why did you let yourself go bald?" He saw Picard draw a breath to speak and interrupted him before the words got out. "Don't you _dare_ tell me that hair isn't worth bothering with." 

"Why should I tell you at all?" Picard was blushing, but Q could see the faint smile hovering around the corners of his eyes. He just looked at his lover until Jean-Luc sighed. "Philippa said I looked better without it." 

He closed his eyes and lay still. "And now I think I'll sleep, if you don't mind." 

"Not at all," Q replied, lying down again. He was silent for a few minutes and then began talking in a soft voice. "Jean-Luc, being in bed with you is getting to me." 

"Go to sleep, Q," Picard said firmly, his smile lines once more betraying him. 

"I can't; I've got this erection going. Is it all right if I just look at you and touch myself?" Picard remained silent and Q kept going. "I'm only just now getting hard so I can start really slowly," and now the entity matched actions to words. "I'll just lie here and pretend that you're touching me. The way you did earlier, when you had me pinned to the bed." His hand sped up, almost of its own accord as Q thought about the way he'd felt earlier. "Jean-Luc, I know you don't play really hard, but do you think you could bring yourself to do that again someday?" 

"I can't answer that because I'm asleep," Picard said, keeping a straight face. 

"Oh, too bad. Because I'm thinking about what it would be like if you really wanted to hear me beg." In spite of the fact that he was trying to get a response out of Picard, Q's words were affecting the entity too. "I'm doing it faster now. It's easier because I'm so hard that I'm leaking." Picard's breathing had definitely sped up, Q noticed. "Maybe" Q went on, his voice husky and low, "when I come, I'll come all over myself...oh...in the same...same places...unhh...you hit...earlier." 

A hand fastened itself around Q's wrist like a titanium restraint. "No, you won't," a firm voice informed him. 

"I won't?" 

"That's right." Picard reached and lifted the lid of the box, and once more Q was spread-eagled on the bed. 

"Ohhh..." 

"I'm not going to make you beg this time," Jean-Luc said, his voice still firm. 

"Oh," Q said trying to sound disappointed. "Why not?" In answer, Picard kicked the covers out of the way to reveal a very hard, very red erection. "That looks lovely." Q tried for nonchalance. "You going to come all over me again?" 

"Sort of." Picard leaned over, lifted the box lid again and them moved to sit next to Q. In spite of his rising lust the entity was a little puzzled. Nothing had changed that he could see. He didn't have much time to wonder about what was going on, because Picard was bending over him, the cock ring in his hands. "I'm going to use you like the sex toy you are," the captain said, and Q was very glad of the ring because the words and the voice alone would have been enough to bring him off. 

And if they hadn't, Picard's next action would surely have done so. The man smoothly straddled Q, smiled at him, and lowered himself over Q's cock. As Q felt his cock enveloped by that tight heat he closed his eyes briefly. Wanting to see the man, he opened them again as soon as he could. He was glad he had. Jean-Luc's expression was beautiful, Q thought, staring at his lover with eager eyes. The man's head was tilted back, his eyes half-closed, and his lower lip caught gently between his teeth. After a moment, he opened his eyes wide and looked directly into Q's eyes. "I love you and I need you and I'm going to spend my whole life learning how to be with you." Then he smiled. "And right now I'm going to fuck myself with you." Using his legs, holding his body straight except for the needed arch in his back, Picard thrust down, eased up, and thrust down again, over and over. Q tried to come. He didn't mean to, but he couldn't help it. And then he couldn't help it again. The cock ring prevented it, though, its power causing him no pain, nor lessening of sensation. It just made it impossible to come. 

Picard was dancing with Q's cock up his ass. The candlelight was dancing over Picard's fine skin. White-hot fire was dancing along Q's nerves. Q's body was the only thing not dancing, held absolutely motionless by soft restraints all over his body, except for his ribcage, which rose and fell with each ragged breath, and his penis, which moved with Jean-Luc's thrusts. Somehow, in being the only thing that was really free, Q's cock became the only thing which seemed to feel. The hot, tight ass fucking itself on him became the only tactile sensation in Q's world, while the half-shadowed motions of the man he loved became all that he could see. 

"I'm going to...pass out," Q warned. Picard's movements didn't change. "I'm going to explode." Another hard downward thrust, sweat gathering on his body to shine like oil. "So hot...so sweet...oh, when you let...me up I'm going to suck on your...nipples and get your...cock in my mouth and swal...low your cum." Picard grunted and thrust with the force of his whole body. 

"Yes!" Q shouted, wanting to thrash around, wanting to grab Picard and hold him close, but keeping far away from the "something" he could feel once again. If he felt Picard's mind while wearing the cock ring, he would die. "I made my cock for you! Use it! Use me!" 

And then Picard reached out for _him,_ pouring _that_ energy into him as his cum shot out of him and practically sizzled on Q's flushed body, and even during the man's orgasm -- or perhaps it had been an instant before, Q couldn't tell -- Jean-Luc snapped off the ring and Q was coming deep inside him. He was still held down, however, and could do nothing but scream as the waves of pleasure beat down on him. He was so full of Picard's joy that his molecules were dancing, and suddenly Q didn't feel motionless at all. 

He was flying, high overhead and into warm, safe darkness which welcomed him with the feel of Jean-Luc's strong arms moving around him once again as his body was released from its imprisonment. 

"Sex kitten," Q mumbled, moving just enough to press against the warm body of his lover. 

"Volcano." 

In the morning, they ate coffee and rolls in bed, then Q made Picard come by getting him to stand up and rub his own nipples while the entity knelt in front of him. Then Picard basically returned the favor. Then they waded into the pool and retrieved the gold box, standing in the water while Picard solemnly held Q's powers in his hands and passed them to Q. 

"I love you, Q. And I would, with or without these." 

Q nodded, swallowed thickly, and stifled the urge to say he was only dating Jean-Luc for his ship. They both had so much to learn. They were both going to be so changed by this. 

Q couldn't wait. 

With a decided lack of flourish, he opened the box and felt his powers return. It was more than a bit like stepping from a dark room into bright sunlight, and the entity stood there a moment, adjusting, and then smiled into Picard's concerned eyes. _I love you, Mon Capitaine._

Picard blinked, frowned, smiled, and concentrated. 

_I know you do, Q._

_So, what would you prefer, fucking wildly while we wander through each other's thoughts and explore the colors and sensations of our love? Or do you want to go back to your ship and hear about the warp manifold upgrades?_

Picard shuddered. _Kiss me and ask me that again...slowly._

  
"Well, that should take care of all of the paper work, Number One," Picard said, pressing a thumb into the signature square of a padd. 

"Where exactly are the two of you going?" Riker asked, glancing curiously at Q. 

"We're not exactly sure," Q replied easily. "We haven't signed up for a cruise or a package tour of five planets in four weeks or anything like that." He shot a glance at Picard and couldn't resist adding, "We're _not_ going to Risa." 

"Certainly not," Picard said calmly. "Sorry, Will, no Horga'hn... 

"Wait a minute," Riker protested. "That was over ten years ago." 

"You captain's got a mind like a steel trap," Q said aloud. _And an ass that makes me go weak in the knees,_ he added silently to Picard. 

_You weren't weak in the knees last night when you were fucking that ass,_ Picard shot back. He included the image of himself as he looked last night just before Q had fucked him. 

_Why did I encourage you to develop your telepathy? All you use it for is making obscene comm calls._

_I learned from the best,_ Picard replied. He was about to say more, when his comm line beeped. "Picard here." 

"Captain, you wanted to look at the changes we made on the main power conduits before you went on leave." 

"Of course. I'm on my way, Mr. LaForge." He stood up, tossing his napkin on the table. "I might as well get this over with." He nodded at Riker, and brushed a hand lightly across Q's shoulder as he left. "Enjoy the rest of your lunch." 

"Pick up some milk on your way home, Sweetie," Q called after him. 

_Naughty Q. Bad Q._

_Oooh you're_ so _butch._

"'Sweetie?'" Riker asked, reaching for the bread basket. "Just when I _think_ I might possibly _like_ you..." 

Q looked at the first officer with amusement, thinking about the progress they'd made in the last three years. Riker had argued with Picard for days when Picard had stunned the senior staff by informing them that he had someone in his life and that someone was Q. Riker had gotten dangerously close to insubordination, all but accusing Picard of being under some sort of mental coercion. Q, terrified that the first major result of his new relationship would be to cost Picard the respect and friendship of the man Jean-Luc loved as a son, had burst in on them to try and reassure Riker. The result had not been pretty, as Picard had angrily told his new lover to stay the hell out of the discussion. Then Riker had started in on Q, and Q, hurt by Picard's anger, had snapped back viciously. Finally, ignored by both first officer and lover as they yelled at one another, the captain had thrown up his hands. Loudly wondering how he'd ever gotten himself in this situation, he'd stormed out of the room and then out of his quarters. It had been so unlike Picard that both Q and Riker had been shocked speechless, and Q, in his shock, had let Riker see how much Picard's words had hurt him. 

After three very uncomfortable days in which the entire crew tiptoed around both the captain and the first officer, Q and Picard had had a long talk about things like privacy and Picard's relationship with his staff. Three days after that, they had been surprised in the middle of dinner by Riker, who had come to apologize and to try to make his peace with his captain's new partner. It hadn't been the end of their antagonism, but, as Riker and the rest of the crew saw the slow changes wrought in Picard as a result of his relationship with Q, they had come to accept the situation. How could they not approve of the way Picard smiled more easily now, and seemed so much less lonely? How could they not approve of the way he managed to retain his aura of command while appearing far more human than he had? As complicated mission after complicated mission made it obvious that Q was no distraction and, indeed, seemed to be a source of strength and solace for Picard, everyone had moved beyond polite acceptance and into a comfortable working relationship. At times Q found it all amusingly domestic and only knowing that Picard occasionally felt the same way had kept him from rebelling against the situation. 

_And I thought he was the only one who had things to learn,_ Q thought now. Three years ago the idea of sitting in on a working lunch with Picard and Riker would have been absurd, and two years ago, Riker would have found an excuse to leave as soon as Picard did. _We've all grown up,_ Q thought. Trying not to fret or show his nervousness, he asked Riker if he'd heard the one about the Calamarain, the exotic dancer and the Vulcan. Riker hadn't, but he countered with the one about the door repair guy, the gila monster, and the Duras sisters. 

"And the doors kept opening and closing and opening..." Q said, watching Picard try to smother a laugh. "Come on Jean-Luc, it's one of his better efforts. Stop trying to be refined, and just laugh." 

"I'm a starship captain, we don't laugh at jokes like that." 

"Oh, then I guess I can't fuck you tonight," Q said disconsolately. When Picard arched a brow in question, the entity went on, "You already have a broomstick up your ass." 

"Oh that's _so_ original, Q. You really must be God; no mere immortal could come up with something that good." 

Q growled and launched himself across the bed at Picard. _We're behaving absurdly,_ he thought. It was understandable, of course. It was one thing to work their way through three years of relationship ups and downs, battling Picard's crew's acceptance, the Continuum's scorn, which seemed to hide jealously more than anything else, and their own ingrained personality flaws in order to get to this point. It was another thing to realize that everything they'd worked for, struggled at, cried over, had finally paid off and that they were at this point. Q hadn't originally been able to tell Picard how they'd know that they were ready to take that next step, to move from physical and telepathic sex to a true joining. In the end, it was simple. One night, after making love to Q for hours, Picard had been on the verge of an explosive orgasm. But when he came, instead of that white-hot ecstatic energy that Q was accustomed to absorbing, the entity had felt pain of a kind he'd never felt before, and Picard had cried out in distress and then passed out. They had finally realized that Jean-Luc had instinctively tried to pour all of himself into Q. After a long night spent talking things over, Picard had arranged to take two weeks of leave. They would elope, the captain had laughingly told Q, both of them knowing that he was forcing the joke a little. 

Things had remained on that level for the last two days and they had two more days to go before the ship could spare its captain. During Picard's off-duty time, they had talked a great deal, and made love less than usual, keeping it to the purely physical human level when they did. Which was exactly what Q was going to do now. 

"Worship me," he demanded, letting a faint echo tinge his words. "I _am_ God." 

"Ho hum," Picard said, his eyes twinkling as he tried to sound bored. "You'll have to do better than that." 

Q's eyes caught fire, and suddenly they weren't on the Enterprise anymore. They were in a hotel room in what could only be Las Vegas, right before the Alliance blew it to bits in the 21st Century. Horribly tacky gold and red wallpaper, gold compressed-shag carpet, gold gilding over the bed posts, the bed itself was garish with red satin sheets and a "1000 Fingers" massage that could be activated with seventeen quarters. 

"Q," Picard warned. "My vacation hasn't started yet." 

"No, but this is a great place to get fucked within an inch of your existence, don't you think?" 

"Back to my ship, Q," Picard growled in just the right tone to show Q that while he wasn't angry, he was serious. 

And so they were back under the blue running lights Q still hated, snug under the soft sheets. "I was just trying for a little fun," the entity pouted, his hands smoothing over Picard's warm body as he shuddered and thought about when they would finally merge. 

_I know what you're thinking about._

_Great._ Q rolled over on his back, taking Picard with him, and drew up his legs. _Then you're getting ready to fuck me like a madman._

_Actually I was hoping you'd suck me off,_ Picard thought, the joking quality of his thoughts distinctly pronounced as he raised in his mind almost absently the command for lubricant. 

Rather than doing what he was supposed to, however, Q rolled over again so that Picard was underneath him, smiling into the captain's mild confusion, and then slid down in the bed and took Picard's semi-erect penis in his mouth. The entity chuckled to himself as his lover reeled in surprise. He sucked hard and without any of the teasing they both so enjoyed, meanwhile filling his lover with a broad variety of images from their time together. 

Here Picard was on his knees and elbows, thrusting back against Q's hand, pleading for his lover to fuck him without any further preamble. Here was Q, head thrown back, chest heaving, as Jean-Luc licked his erection from base to tip and down again. Here they were necking on the couch in the ready room. Here they were naked and thrusting against each other on the floor of the room which forty minutes later served as the conference chamber in the Margonsian/Kellet Peace Agreement. Here they were fucking madly on the hull of the Enterprise inside a blue bubble of oxygen, Q with his legs up this time, Picard staring at the stars and pumping in a rhythm which seemed set by the movements of the cosmos. Here they were once again in Picard's quarters, touching each other and softly calling each other's name. 

"I love you," Picard called now, closing his eyes as Q's warm, generous mouth continued to work on him. The man knew he could plead, or writhe, or bargain, but it would make no difference. If Q were in no mood to be hurried, this could go on for quite some time. 

Instead, Jean-Luc began to hum, a quiet sing-song of a half-forgotten tune from his childhood, something his father or mother had sung about the house on rainy days, that often came to him at times like these. Q, of course, could have retaught him the rest of the song, but instead it was something they never spoke of when Picard wasn't making it, and at such moments music lessons were hardly appropriate. 

"So good," Jean-Luc said through his song. "Your mouth feels so good." 

_Do you want to come in my mouth?_ Q's head was moving up and down now, and Picard felt like the energy he had learned to see in his own body was growing into an explosion of sunlight. 

He groaned, the childhood tune still humming. _Yes, always. I always want to come in your mouth, in your ass, in your hand, over you chest, against your cock, between your buttocks...wherever you'll let me come._

_How about on my foot?_

_Bring it up here and I'll give it a go._

Q sucked harder, ruthlessly, and Picard came before he meant to, his astonished pleasure washing through Q along with that energy he still couldn't experience often enough. Q was rather guiltily aware that that one thing -- that simple exposure to Picard's orgasm -- was enough to bond him to this man. It was still incredible to him that along with that came his love for Picard's soul, his fascination with his mind, and, of course, his obsession with Picard's body. So, when the man's seed spilled out in Q's mouth, the entity himself came, washing his own energy over Jean-Luc, whose flaring neural network doubled in brilliance. 

When Q moved up to take Picard in his arms, he heard a familiar low rumbling chuckle. "You're going to blind me one day," the captain said. Q snapped his fingers and Picard was suddenly wearing a pair of sunglasses. "Q!" 

Q laughed. "Sorry," he said, rather insincerely. The sunglasses vanished. 

"You're asking for it," Picard said, narrowing his eyes. 

Q's heart started beating a little faster. "Asking for it?" he asked innocently. "What's 'it?'" 

Picard smiled mysteriously and Q suddenly felt him shut down until Q couldn't see the flare of lights under his skin or catch the occasional sub-vocal thoughts. He shivered, and forced himself not to do the same. Teaching Picard to see things on a number of different levels had been an enjoyable, if occasionally frustrating, experience, but until the first time Picard had deliberately shut him out, Q hadn't thought much about certain aspects of Picard's rapidly growing abilities. Q had been terrified, and for some time afterwards, he'd preferred to give up his powers rather than retain them and still not be able to "see" Jean-Luc. Then one night, Picard had complained that he couldn't "see" Q and the entity had somewhat grudgingly conceded the point. Now, he liked it, sort of. It was like being restrained, in that it seemed to focus more of his attention on the physical. Nerve-wracking, but fun. 

"You know," Picard said. "It." 

"Is 'it' bigger than a ODN junction box?" Q asked. "Really, Jean-Luc, if I wanted to play Twenty Questions, I'd have left my clothes on." 

"Bitch, bitch, bitch," Picard muttered. The captain suddenly moved and Q found himself flat on his back with Picard looking at him. Q took the opportunity to writhe slightly, making sure that Picard knew the show was for him. "Hmmm..." the man said. "I like that. Keep going." Q knew exactly what Jean-Luc wanted and thought a bottle of oil into existence. This was going to be wonderful. 

"You want to see me," he murmured, pouring some of the oil into his hands. He then ran his hands down his chest, avoiding his nipples for the moment. "You're such a voyeur, Jean-Luc. You love it when I touch myself for you." 

"Yes, I do," Picard replied, his voice husky. "Do it slowly, love. Make it last." 

Q laughed softly and moved his oily fingers until they lightly brushed his nipples. He could feel Picard's gaze like an echoing touch and he had to force himself to keep the pressure light. Out of curiosity, he'd once tried touching his human body when Jean-Luc wasn't around. It had been mildly entertaining, but nothing like this. "Knowing you're...looking at me...makes it so...good," Q panted. He let his touch become firmer now. 

"You're beautiful," Picard murmured. Q looked over and smiled as he noticed the Jean-Luc was already very hard. 

"All for you..." Q said. He lightly pinched one nipple, closing his eyes at the sensation of it. "Here's me...pinching my nipples...ohhhh...just for you...to watch..." Q suddenly felt something, he wasn't sure what, touch his skin. "Jean-Luc...what...?" 

Picard tried to look innocent. "Just looking at you." At Q's confused look, the man added, "I've been wondering if I could make you literally feel me looking at you." 

"Always...something new," Q said. He dimly wondered if it would be such a good idea for Picard to try anything new right now, but as he felt Jean-Luc's gaze caress him, he decided that it didn't matter. He wasn't exactly sure what it felt like. There was heat and a touch like that of plasma, but there was also an almost emotional resonance, as if Jean-Luc's lust for him had been made tangible. A small portion of Q's mind filed the technique away for future reference, but the rest of him concentrated on the sensation. He let his hands fall to the bed; he'd much rather be touched by Jean-Luc in some fashion than by himself. 

Over the last few years Q had learned more than he'd ever thought possible about himself. Billions of years of prior existence had made him believe he'd known himself pretty thoroughly, but every day with Picard involved some sort of discovery. There were new pleasures, new amusements, new insights, new desires, new challenges, and with each of them came something about himself Q hadn't quite realized. Only after this had gone on for quite some time had Q realized that above all else he equated love with joy (not a surprise), desire (also not a surprise, though the desire was not strictly sexual), and the ability to be comforted (an enormous surprise). Q hadn't even realized at first what it did to him when Picard assured him that his desires and joys, as well as his aversions and fears, were _acceptable_ to him. Hesitantly, over their time together, Q had confessed to things about himself by word or action that bothered him, and Picard had not tried to "Troi" him into dealing with them or conquering them: he had only embraced them, taken them as part of what made Q what he was. But it was much more than that. Around Picard, Q found that he could let go of his need to manipulate, to come out of every encounter on top, to intimidate, to be always right. In doing all of this, Q had found his greatest prize: Picard's love was a soothing balm, a source of inexhaustable warmth, a show of support, armor plating for the emotional wounds against which, on his own, Q had never developed a true resistance. 

It delighted the entity beyond even Q words to hold Jean-Luc close and know he was protecting him against physical harm. Though he'd yet to be forced into intervening in any actual Enterprise missions (Picard had given him permission to help him save the ship only when there was absolutely no other option), Q kept a close watch on everything, knowing that despite himself the captain was comforted by his efforts. Jean-Luc might be just about the only mortal Q had ever met who really _could_ handle the sort of power a relationship with a Q offered, but he was still a human being who couldn't help being aware of his life's new advantages. 

And in return, Picard protected Q from far worse disasters than Q faced on his behalf: boredom, loneliness, emptiness, meaninglessness, despair, bitterness. Q liked to touch himself while Picard watched in part simply because it was such a strong reminder that he didn't _have_ to resort to touching himself. A Q could, after all, masturbate like nobody's business, and Q had performed the act in various fashions and guises over the millennia. Now that rather desperate act was transformed into a simple gift, his formerly onastic pleasure a show for his lover, the orgasms he achieved no longer a product of his desire to escape himself, but a method for demonstrating his joy at what life had given him. 

And so, as Q lay there now under that tactile touch, completely comforted, completely secure, this new act of lovemaking seemed to him to complete some sort of a circuit. He had made this body for Jean-Luc's eyes, after all, and now his eyes were making something new with it, on it...of it. 

It was a light sensation at first, a sort of warm draught that tingled and almost burned. It wasn't concentrated on any one spot, but diffused across his chest and arms, then up his neck and up along to the tip of his head. The sensation seemed to Q to take on a color -- the warm honey-gold glow of his lover's eyes. 

_I love you, Jean-Luc._

_You look so good. My God._ Look _at you._

Q moaned slightly as the sensation increased. Hot waves of that feeling were now moving over his body, and when they first began lapping at his erect penis, the entity thrust his hips forward with a roar. 

_You're beautiful, and you're all mine._

"I've got to fuck you, Jean-Luc. I've got to.” 

_In a moment. Look at your skin. Look at you hands. Look at your cock._

"OHHHHHH! I have to fuck you NOW!" Q's eyes, closed at the feel of his lover's gaze, opened wide, then narrowed in frustration as he still couldn't see the lights of the man's desire. Picard's cock was leaking, dripping a small teardrop of precum on the entity's thigh. Q was sure his light lattice would bask him like a sun. Dimly, he began to feel determination growing. It was unacceptable for Picard to be holding back like this while his eyes drove Q to such pleasure and need. But though Q could not simply grab the man and shove himself inside, he wasn't helpless. 

_I've got to get you on your back with your legs drawn up,_ Q began, writhing under that continuing gaze as it grew even hotter and harder but still able to put his most seducitve inflection into his "voice." _I've got to see you with your legs up against your chest and stare into your face and watch you come a dozen times while I fuck your tight ass and feel you burn up under my hands._ Q noted with pride that Picard was starting to sweat rather profusely, and perhaps the barest aura was beginning to shine from his skin. _I've got to hear your voice call my name while I take your cock in my hand and play with it while your body dances with me inside you._

Picard blinked, and Q grinned even as his heavy breathing gave him away completely. They were both so hard they could feel the urgency of each other's erections from both sides. 

"Oh, shut up and fuck me already," Picard growled, rolling off Q and drawing up his legs. 

Q laughed delightedly. One of the disadvantages of having a lover as stubborn as himself was that when they pit their wills against one another, the tease could sometimes go on for hours. Of course, that could be seen as an advantage, but it was damn frustrating at times. For Picard to give up this easily was unusual. "You're easy tonight," the entity said. 

Jean-Luc said nothing, he just kept _looking_ at Q, and Q realized that Picard hadn't actually given up. Curious, he tried looking back at Jean-Luc in the same fashion. Jean-Luc bit his lower lip and moaned. "Is that...what it feels...like?" the man gasped out. 

"Yes," Q replied. It felt amazingly good from his end too. He was aware of Jean-Luc on a level he hadn't been before. He was accustomed to reading Jean-Luc's nervous system, specifically that lattice-net of Picard's erogenous areas, and he was also accustomed to being telepathically linked to Jean-Luc's mind as they made love. But this was different, he was aware of a strange and beautiful shifting pattern that he realized was some kind of emotional aura. It made sense, not only had Jean-Luc's gaze been tangible, but it had conveyed the man's emotions as well. 

And it still was conveying those emotions, love, and lust, and gratitude, and pride, and the feeling of simultaneously possessing and being possessed, and so many other things. Q sent his own feelings back, smiling as Jean-Luc's eyes widened. For several minutes they were frozen like that, mirroring each other's emotions and watching those emotions play over one another. Then Q felt Jean-Luc drop the barrier he'd been maintaining. The familiar blinding lattice work of physical desire lit up and Q could see _and_ feel his partner's need. _Yes, love, yes,_ he thought to Jean-Luc. _I'll give you all you need and more._

_Always,_ Picard replied, falling back on the one word he'd imbued with so much meaning on their very first night together. Q felt the word and the promise resonate through both of them and he was driven to answer it in the realm of the physical. He called up lubricant almost absentmindedly and began to slide his fingers inside Jean-Luc. 

Picard's neural net flared as Q touched him and his emotions burned equally brightly. Q felt so many things, among them the intense gratitude that no one had ever fucked Jean-Luc before Q. With all of Picard's varied sexual experiences, there was still that one act that was Q's and Q's alone. _And all the rest of it is new with you, as well,_ Jean-Luc thought, picking up on Q's sense of pride. _Just kissing you is brand new, each and every time._

_Good,_ Q replied. _And this...?_ he asked, bringing his cock up to that tight opening. 

"Ohhh..." Picard moaned. Q loved it when his lover spoke out loud, loved the sound of that voice, all honey and dark velvet and smoke as if it were coiled around him. Suddenly he had an idea, and "listened" to Jean-Luc the same way they'd been "looking" at one another. 

Picard immediately followed suit, and soon other senses followed. Both reveled in the _taste_ and _smell_ of their lover as Q leaned down for a kiss that went on and on. It seemed to Q that he could breathe in the French countryside where Picard had spent his youth: the perfume of grass and the musk of grapes. He could easily feel now the man's astonishment at the heady elixir that was the Continuum and it was quite some time before they both realized Q's cock was still outside Picard's body. 

The rush of urgency Q felt from both himself and his lover became almost everything inside the entity's consciousness, but still he held back, eyes locked, almost all his human and Q senses raised to full volume as together they smiled and applied themselves to raising up their tactile sense as well. Lightly, Q trailed the fingertips of his right hand over Picard's shoulder, and the man screamed. Jean-Luc then traced a faint pattern over Q's left buttocks, and the entity almost passed out. More touches were exchanged, and their power to absorb that pleasure grew and grew. 

Now the sensory assault was everything. Light and heat and pleasure and music and delicious salt and sugar and perfume and bliss and every last molecule that was their lover... 

"Fuck me already, damnit!" Picard screamed, his legs drawn up and apart as far as he could manage, frustrated at the limitations of his flesh even while that flesh was giving him more pleasure than he had ever known. He was crying, and his tears were jewels of sensation Q kissed off with silken lips that brought ecstasy along with each light touch. 

" _Always,_ " Q said and thought and felt as, at last, his cock pushed just a little inside the captain's body and everything became the blinding light of their mutual pleasure. 

  
Nearby, on the same deck, in her quarters, in her bed, Deanne Troi was dreaming that she was being fucked by love. Though it was only a dream, she knew the orgasms she was ripping through were real enough, and when she awoke at last her body was drenched in sweat and her underwear was drenched in something else. 

She knew little particulars of her dream, and these were all from her own life, her own images and fantasies and feelings...and yet she knew what had set them off. 

Quickly, she rose and stripped and showered and dressed, then walked the few doors down and pressed the door chime. 

After a moment she pressed it again. 

The doors swooshed open. 

"Deanna, what is it?" 

"I thought you should know the captain and Q have left early on their vacation." 

"What? They...right now?" 

"Right now. I doubt we'll be seeing either of them for awhile. I didn't want anyone else to surprise you with the news." 

"Of course. Well, thank you. I...yes, this won't be hard to deal with. Um, are you all right?" 

"I'm great. I thought maybe I could come in for a little while." 

"Sure, ah, let me get a robe." 

"All right. I see you were practicing on your trombone last night." 

"Yes, ah, I really need -- oh, here it is -- to practice more." 

Something soft rustled. 

"Well, I should be a good host and offer you a drink or some -- Deanna! What are you doing?" 

"What does it look like I'm doing?" 

"It looks like you dropped your dress on the floor and now you're...lovely." 

Deanna smiled. "Are you going to do something about it, or what?" 

_Q, we have a problem._

Q frowned as Jean-Luc broke his concentration. He was in such close contact with Picard that he instantly saw what Picard had picked up on. A little surprised that he hadn't noticed it first, Q flashed himself and Jean-Luc elsewhere. _What about Deanna and Will?_ Picard asked, and Q could feel the mild concern Jean-Luc felt for influencing the pair. 

_It would have happened very soon anyway, Jean-Luc. Between Micro-brain marrying that Trill, and Will watching you and noticing the beneficial effects of a serious relationship, they've been heading there at Warp 6. We just bumped it up to Warp 9. Relax, Captain, you're on leave right now, didn't you hear?_

"Good..." Picard gasped out. "What are you...waiting for...then?" 

"Ohhh..." Listening to Jean-Luc speak with enhanced senses was amazing. _Talk to me more,_ Q demanded. _Tell me what you want._

"You...I want you...to fuck me...to take me...to be mine...to make me come...again...and...again..." 

Instead of holding back, Q let it happen, let the orgasm flare out of him. As it usually did unless he were keeping Jean-Luc from an orgasm, his climax triggered one in his lover. This time in particular, Q could understand why. With all his senses enhanced, Jean-Luc's orgasm was almost too much to comprehend, both on a physical level and an emotional level. Q opened himself up further as the flare died down, trying to catch the last of it while he abandoned his original idea of teasing Jean-Luc. Instead, he moved into his lover hard and hot and strong, letting himself drown in all the sensations. Every millimeter of his human skin was charged and aware, and he cried out at the incredible feeling of moving inside Jean-Luc. _So hot, so tight, you were made for this, made to be fucked to within an inch of your sanity._

"Only by...you..." Jean-Luc gasped out. _Oh, love, it's incredible. Everything is so much more, so intense._ Q reached down and stroked Jean-Luc's chest and the man screamed. _Please, don't make me come. Don't let me._ Q immediately blocked the necessary paths, not only in Jean-Luc, but in himself. Then he reached down again, this time brushing his fingertips across one of Jean-Luc's nipples. Picard arched and his muscles clenched around Q's cock, evoking an incoherent shout from the entity. 

Q felt as though he were drowning in this ecstasy. Everything was so heightened that he began to be unsure of where the boundaries between the physical, the emotional, and the mental aspects of himself were any more. He was wrapped in Jean-Luc, surrounded by perfect love, a love that touched every single aspect of himself. He knew that his human body was moving, and knew that the simple physical act was the bedrock of this experience. That repetitive motion, his cock driving in and out of Jean-Luc, was the center of everything. 

Layered on top of the physical was the mental connection as images of the past shimmered across their telepathic link. Here was Jean-Luc taking one of the biggest risks of his life and dropping his robe on the floor to stand naked in front of Q, and here were all the times since then that he'd done the same thing, as Q taught him that he was beautiful. Here was Q during the first time he went up on his knees and elbows for Jean-Luc and here were all the times after that, like the time Jean-Luc had walked into his bedroom after a long boring day and found Q waiting for him in just that pose. Here were the myriad places they'd made love (a desert oasis, a butte on Vulcan, suspended within in the sparkling gases of the Horsehead Nebula, in a Jefferies tube, underwater in the pool at Jean-Luc's villa, behind a bush in the Imperial Tea Garden on Sumiko III, in a box at the Great Opera House on the Klingon Homeworld, and so many more). Here were the millions of times over three years that they'd talked dirty to one another because they couldn't fuck for one reason or another. 

And then here was the emotional level and all the memories associated with that. They relived the fears and feelings of inadequacy that Q had struggled with in the early days of their relationship, feelings that had slowly melted and then vanished before the bright sun of Jean-Luc's love. They felt again the pain of loss Jean-Luc had suffered when they'd gone to France and he had finally said goodbye to his family, sharing that grief with Q in a way that had terrified the captain because he'd taught himself to keep the grief and pain inside. And they remembered the times when it looked like it would never work out between them, the fights born of miscommunication and stubborn pride, the times when Picard's religious dedication to his chosen career got in the way, the times when the Continuum's scorn almost succeeded in driving Q from his mortal lover, and all the little petty stumbling blocks of fear and anger and jealousy that they'd overcome with love, patience, love, humor, love, respect, and more love. 

And yes, here was that love. All the flavors of it swirled around them, the blind lust they evoked in one another until Q wondered how it was that everyone on board the Enterprise didn't jump Picard at every chance they got, and Picard wondered why he hadn't dragged Q onto the floor and fucked him the very first time he saw him. They felt the way that they loved each other's mind, remembering all the times they argued about ethics and philosophy, discussed music and literature, and how appalled Q was that Jean-Luc hadn't read the Chronicles of Narnia and how surprised Jean-Luc was that Q didn't know anything about Philip Glass. They reveled in the memory of how much fun they had had once Q had convinced Jean-Luc that it was all right to have fun and Jean-Luc had convinced Q that he was laughing _with_ the entity not _at_ him. The discovery of fun had lead them to numerous adventures, from skulking around San Francisco in fedoras while hot on the trail of a mob boss, to Tagus III back when the parties went on for weeks at a time, to a mock duel with rapiers on the left nacelle of the Enterprise, and so many more times when Q's love of masks and Picard's need to not be a captain made them run away, which in turn always led to more and still more sex. 

Finally there was the love that encompassed all of it, the love that they had for everything that the other was. Everything about Jean-Luc was precious to Q, things that annoyed him in others were perfect in his lover and things that he admired in others were divine qualities in Jean-Luc. And in his turn, Jean-Luc loved everything about Q until all the things Q had always hated about himself had no power over the entity any more. 

With all the sharing that was going on, all the memories and feelings ripping through them, overwhelming them, shining as they passed between them, neither noticed that their physical bodies weren't quite "whole" anymore. They felt whole; they felt more complete, in fact, than they had ever felt. Locked together, fucking physcially, mentally, emotionally, every sense attuned to the highest, and wanting more, needing more, they achieved more. 

"You're so beautiful," Q said, basking Jean-Luc in his complete love. And the man saw himself with Q's vision: all his flaws and vanities, all his fears and lack of light. 

And suddenly, Jean-Luc was seven years old, talking to his father about wanting to fly in starships. His father -- and for the first time Q could see Maurice Picard as Jean-Luc had seen him, as part of him would always see him: as God in his house -- stood before him and sneered at him for being stupid and vain, for believing he should, for believing he _could_ do something so grandiose. Q felt with his lover the childhood pain of that simple moment, the beginning of all those years of conflict, the seed of his deepest worries...worries that Q himself had played on when Picard died from an energy blast to his artificial heart. 

"Of course I played on it," Q said -- for there was no real difference between saying and thinking anymore. "He was an asshole." 

The seven-year-old Picard giggled. 

"He was a frightened little man who hated the idea that you would be more than he was, more than his father had been. His ego demanded that you and Robert become two more versions of himself, and that only what was possible for him would be possible for you." 

Picard growled in anger, pushing himself against Q's cock for the simple roughness of it. 

"He loved you, but his love demanded that you become the son he had in mind from the beginning to love. When you didn't become what he wanted, he tried to change you, tried to tug at you and snip and tie you down like one of his vines, trying to make the same damn grapes to turn into the same damn wine his family had made for generations." 

Pain danced inside Picard. Simple childhood pain that cut so much more deeply than any adult pain could. Dissapointing his father was worse than being tortured by the Cardassians, worse than being assimilated, worse than losing the Star Gazer. And as Q stared with him at that pain, felt it with him, Picard felt awash in embarassment. To be pained by something so simple -- to feel pain after so many years. Instinctively, he tried to cover it, ashamed at being so naked when the uncovered self was so ugly and stupid. 

"Don't, love," Q whispered. "Can't you see that I understand? Can't you see you're only more beautiful?" 

And though they weren't really human-shaped anymore, Picard rose his eyes to Q's gaze of love and concern and saw there no derision, no scorn, and felt himself break inside, crying. 

And into Picard's deepest wound, split open before him and running to the very center of his heart, Q poured his love for Jean-Luc, an emotional nectar of unconditional acceptance that truly _was_ perfect, for it contained Q's age-old understanding that neither of them was without fault or flaw, but that the tapestry of each thread made them who they were, and was thus something to love, something to cherish, something to be welcomed instead of beaten out with the most powerful weapon in the universe: the witholding of love and acceptance until the "flaw" was gone. 

"I warned you love is a dangerous thing," Q said, fucking Picard with adoration right into his center while the man lay sprawled out and taking it, unable to respond at first with more than tears and a sort of low keen at the sweet healing pain. 

But as the love continued, as Picard began to believe it wasn't going to end the second he did something wrong, Jean-Luc was able to whisper, "So wise, my beloved." 

"Allow an entity to know a thing or two after five billion years." 

And then the man did what Q had been waiting for: he waited for Q to reciprocate, his own love poised, ready to be given without condition where Q needed it most. 

With a sort of deep mental breath, Q allowed Picard to return with him to the "beginning" of the Q -- a time when they were still interested in the universe, when everything was fresh and new, when the Q ran about as children, delighting in every little thing. Q remembered the incredible feeling of it, the sheer joy of existence...and then he remembered... 

"It's too hard," Q said, struggling away. 

Picard caught him close, opening his eyes as wide as his legs, daring Q to dazzle him. 

And in near anger Q showed him the first time he had realized that he and all his fellow Q could only exist as others saw them outside the narrow range of their Continuum. He realized that in all his travels away from the cramped confines of home, he would have to don some sort of disguise, be seen by others in ways which would always be partly himself, but never really _him._ And then... 

"I'm here. I've got you. I'm not going anywhere." 

When he told this to his fellow Q, greatly concerned about this limitation, they had laughed at him and called him a freak for caring about it, and Q had realized that he would have to wear a disguise at home as well. 

The tangible light of Picard's love flowed into words, entering Q's consciousness with strength and with care: 

"Morons. They'll never know what they gave up when they turned away from you. You were only telling them the truth. My dear Q, the Cassandra of the Continuum, tell me the truth whenever you like. You know that, don't you?" 

"Ohhhh. That feels so good! Are you fucking me?" 

Picard thrust harder, deeper and deeper into Q, and Q returned each thrust with one of his own. 

"Hmm," Q told his mate. "I think we're merging." 

"Hmm. Isn't it nice?" 

And it was, no question, the nicest thing that either had ever done. With just a few more thrusts, they poured completely into each other, staying gentle, as gentle as the first time either had ever reached out to another -- before that first rejection, before there was fear. With confidence and bliss they moved closer and closer together until there was only themselves, looking with the same combination of human and Q eyes, beating with a human/Q heart, thinking human/Q thoughts. 

"How wonderful," they thought, then ripped through a few dozen conjoined orgasms, feeling their fused light explode and contract with all the beauty of pure thought and all the tactile pleasure of arms wrapped around each other and cocks thrust deep into their partner's body. "What next? We have the universe to explore together, so many things to see again for the first time. What next? Hmmmm." 

And they ripped through a few dozen more conjoined orgasms. Only this time, they separated the sensations so that the first time was all on some sort of odd physical plane. They didn't exactly have human forms and yet each seemed to have the form that the other loved. Q was fucking Jean-Luc and yet, somehow, Jean-Luc was fucking Q. It was gentle at first and then hard as each could stand, each feeling what the other felt, until Q could feel the small twitch of Picard's upper lip that always happened as he came and Picard could feel Q's toes trying to curl. 

And then they went for an emotional orgasm, layering the joy on top of the desire and the acceptance on top of the need and the love on top of all of it. It meant that they again looked at all the other was, but this time it was through the lens of desire. 

"I'll never stop looking in mirrors," Jean-Luc murmured (or thought, it was still all the same). "You're making me vain beyond reason." 

And Q had to share the thought he'd had watching Picard the morning after their first night, and Jean-Luc shivered with the pleasure of being this adored. The adoration was put on top of the layers of emotions and Jean-Luc added his love of Q's laugh and the entity's wicked ability to make Jean-Luc laugh. So then Q, in turn, added his deep admiration for Picard's steadiness and resolve and Picard countered with his gratitude for the gifts Q had given him through the years. Finally the whole mix of emotions was deep enough and strong enough that it exploded out of each of them and covered both of them until it was a joy so rich and a love so deep that only by being together could they stand it. 

And they played with this merging more and more, discovering that all the senses they had enhanced earlier could be traded so that Jean-Luc saw with Q's eyes and so on until they had settled into what each perceived as the other. Q, who thought he knew every last bit of his lover, discovered that the slight webbing in-between Jean-Luc's thumb and his hand was amazingly sensitive when stroked just after the man had an orgasm. Jean-Luc happily announced that he'd had no idea that pulling on Q's hair in a certain way while Q was being fucked hard was startlingly effective. 

"But how can we be in each other's bodies when we are each other and yet still are separate and have no form at all?" Jean-Luc asked. 

Q could feel his partner's relief when Q said he understood the question. "I don't know," he had to add. 

"I think there's more," Picard said. "But I don't know if..." 

"...we'll survive it," Q finished the thought. He mulled it over. "I feel as if there should be more, but, Jean-Luc, I've never done anything beyond this part." 

"Then we should do it. After all, I'd never let anyone fuck me in the ass before you." 

"Jean-Luc, what about..." 

"Please, Q, this is like that tease the first night, only now I can't be repressed and pretend that I don't want every joy you can give me. And I _won't_ hold out on you; I have to give you all of myself. You've made me whole and beautiful and everything I once thought I could be and the only way to say thank you is to truly give myself to you." 

"Oh, love...Jean-Luc, you are the form of love and you are my definition of beauty. You have given me something that I lost so long ago, and made me know that I was right and they were wrong and I have to give that to _you._ " 

"Damn the torpedoes," Picard thought. 

It was the last thought either of them had as a separate entity. It was suddenly obvious that the joining they had experienced earlier was the beginning of what they were doing now. For a split-second they were afraid of the overwhelming nature of what lay before them, but both Q's knowledge and Jean-Luc's courage made it possible to proceed. 

Each felt as if their physical forms were somehow fading or becoming permeable until there was no barrier between them, and as that occurred their emotions and thoughts and everything that made up the rest of their selves became permeable and interfused. Out of some strange instinct Q threw up a partial shield around them and felt Jean-Luc do the same, and the entity knew that, out of themselves, they had created a place where no power in the universe could reach them. 

The joining was light and heat and fire and air and an energy so great it could have powered a sun and it felt like sex but it also felt like flying and there was no "other" any more and it was the only thing in the universe and this new consciousness was the universe and it was everything that ever was and it was some form of being so far beyond the mere Q and human that made it up and it thought with a laugh that this was a new universe born out of love and that love was the All . . . 

  
He didn't mind the blue of the running lights any more. There was a comfort to them, an almost talismanic feel that as long as they were on the ship was all right. _So superstitious..._

_Comes with the job. We're so fragile and these shells that we surround ourselves in are so primative and flimsy._

_Now where did that thought come from?_

_You. And how did you know that I felt that way about the lights?_

"You," Q replied out loud. It was strange to be in his human body again and not feel in the least bit awkward. He was easier as a human than he had ever been because now he'd grown up in a human body. 

"Ha!" Picard teased. "You just think you did. _I_ was the one who had to deal with inappropriate erections in middle school." The captain stretched, and Q suddenly got off the bed to watch him. Running though his memory was the knowledge of how difficult it been for Picard to lay there on the bed and wait for him to make up his mind on that night three years ago. "Yes," that velvet voice said, "but now I know what you felt and the inner battle you had to fight to just touch me." 

"Like this?" Q asked, falling gracefully to the bed and running his hands from the tops of Picard's shoulders all down the lovely length of him right to his toes, then back up, slowly, until his hands wrapped gently around his erection and lightly stroked. 

The man was now quite hard. Q didn't have to ask what he wanted. Picard's body cried out for him, and, gently, Q laid his body out over Jean-Luc, pressing him down onto the bed with all the weight he could stand comfortably, and then held him close, his own erection tucked warmly against his mate's thigh. 

"Riker to Picard." 

It took the captain a second to get his voice right. "Picard here." 

"Astrophysics reports that they'll be ready to make their first field test of the interplexing sensor modifications at 1500, sir." 

"Tell them I'll be there. Thank you, Number One." 

"Aye, sir." There was a pause. "And they say there'll be room for Q, if he likes." 

"Thank you, Riker," Q said, the fingers of his right hand no longer able to keep from caressing Picard's left nipple. Since he now shared the captain's interest in the ship as deeply as his mate did, he liked to watch everything the crew did. But since he was now also as sensitive to the concept of privacy as a human would be, he appreciated being invited. Of course, he was still a Q, so he knew that the first field test was going to fail rather abysmally because Astrophysics and Engineering hadn't figured out that the interplexing system they'd devised was prey to unique feedback difficulties, but he was hardly going to tell anyone that, and it would still be interesting to see how everyone reacted. 

The comm line cut out, and the two lovers smiled at each other and kissed deeply, Picard fonding Q's chest and Q beginning to move his hips just slightly down into Picard's perfect body. It wasn't quite a thrust, just a bit of pressure that made them both groan. 

Pleasure flared, and now they both began to thrust against the other, intending to come this way, looking forward to feeling each other's seed over their skin. Then Picard needed more, and spread and raised up his legs to wrap them around Q's back. 

"Oh, I get to fuck you," Q breathed, shuddering. "I love fucking you." 

"I noticed," Jean-Luc smiled. Q pushed lubricant inside him with his fingers. "I love fucking you too, but right now I want you inside my ass, moving in and out because it feels good, because I love it when I look up at you and your eyes are closed and your skin is flushed and your whole body is straining to give me pleasure, and I can feel you moving in and out in of my body and there's no one and nothing else in the universe but you." 

"Ugghhh. Maybe you should fuck me this time." 

"Inside me, Q, right now." 

The entity suited action to words, thrusting his hard, leaking cock inside for that rough engulfment that meant so much to both of them, and Picard's eyes closed and his head flopped back against the bed and his whole body hummed. Q gave him a moment, then those hazel eyes opened again to lock onto his as they both began to move. 

Suddenly, Picard was remembering something that Q had thought: with the light lattice of his nerves burning bright, pushing into his body on that first night had been like fucking a cosmos of pleasure. 

"Yes," he said aloud, both of them wanting to keep this time strictly physical, and both of them knowing this time how to do that. "So good. Like a universe all to myself of stars made only of you." 

"Far too coherent a thought," Q admonished, then thrust hard and fast, getting into a rhythm that made Picard burn. On and on, thrusting deeply, furiously, as though he would never reach any goal, and there was nothing to this action but the action itself, being buried over and over inside his lover. 

"Ooohh," Picard said. "Yessssss. Good. Ohhhh." 

"Bet...ter," Q replied, then snarled with joy as he felt the climax rise up and out of his lover's body, basking in the energy he simply wanted more the more of it he had. Picard arched and howled and came, his cum and his unique frequency of bliss splashing over them both as Q joined him, pouring himself in a hundred ways deep inside the man he loved. The mixture ignited: a volcano, a cosmos, two lovers giving and receiving all they could. 

THE END 


End file.
